Speedway a long way from first race day

Monday, March 1, 2004 | 9:53 a.m.

It's that time of the year again, when preparations have switched into high gear for the running of the UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400, the big NASCAR weekend that is expected to go off without a hitch at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Oh, there may be a hiccup or two. But now in its seventh year, the marquee event on the local sports calendar has pretty much evolved into an exact science for the men and women in the LVMS lab coats.

That wasn't the case on Sept. 15, 1996.

Opening weekend at LVMS was an adventure that not even the Army could have envisioned. With NASCAR taking a wait-and-see approach in regard to the $200 million facility going up between Interstate 15 and Las Vegas Boulevard adjacent to Nellis Air Force base, it was the fledgling Indy Racing League that was the guest of honor at the LVMS christening.

There nearly wasn't a bow on which to break the champagne bottle. Not to mention restrooms.

When the track opened for practice on Friday morning, the first fans through the gates may have noticed that several restrooms on the main concourse were literally only halfway finished, barely reaching beyond the urinals. Other areas in which the place was lacking were caution lights on the track, plaster on the infield tunnel walls, electricity in the press room and grass on the tri-oval.

Actually, there was grass on the tri-oval. Only the workers had begun laying the sod with the green side down, until somebody called it to their attention.

At that point, it appeared LVMS wasn't ready for a tricycle race, much less the world's fastest racecars.

Yet, 48 hours later, the inaugural Las Vegas 500K was in the record books. It was a testimonial to hard work, dedication, a "we're-in-this-together" attitude between the track and the sanctioning body, lots of electrician's tape and good old-fashioned American ingenuity, most of which probably wouldn't have passed code.

"It was a tremendous undertaking," said John Bisci, who was head of the LVMS publicity department in the early days. Actually, he was the publicity department, as getting Bisci a staff was right behind "restroom attendants" on the speedway's priority list during its infancy.

Bisci, who like the track itself, has come full circle -- after a stint as a NASCAR team publicist he's back in the LVMS press office -- said the only mistake the LVMS brain trust made was being too ambitious in opening for business.

"You had 1,600 acres, and all these different venues, with the superspeedway being the crown jewel," he said. "Unfortunately, there wasn't enough time (to finish the job). When we got down to race week, we had to start prioritizing. We needed fencing, we needed lights. So when that happens, something had to be shoved off to the side."

One of those amenities was the infield media center, which was literally shoved off to the side. When construction deadlines evaporated like a gallon of spilled methanol, the press center was set up in a vacant infield garage near Turn 1.

Well, an almost vacant garage. There were some racecars from one of the many LVMS driving schools parked in the rear, one of which roared to life during a pole day press conference, nearly knocking Arie Luyendyk off the stage.

On race day, after ABC cut away when the race ran long, Bisci wound up driving his car through the back door of the garage and holding a microphone to the dashboard speaker, so the media could listen to the closing laps.

That there even were closing laps was shocking to Leroy Boehm, who did most of the electrical wiring at the track.

When asked if the Speedway had any power problems on opening weekend, Boehm didn't hesitate.

"A problem with power? Yeah, they didn't have any," he said with a chuckle.

"It almost all had to be done overnight and the circuits they requested were out of this world. We had to lay temporary circuits all around the track. It's amazing to think what would have happened had some of that stuff melted. They wouldn't have had anything."

They almost didn't have yellow lights. Because the caution light system had to be converted to a 48-volt power supply, it was run off four car batteries that were rigged together and placed in the flag man's stand above the start-finish line.

Had the flag man accidentally pulled the red cable off the terminal when he was reaching for the move over flag, chaos might have ensued.

"Race control, the press room, the TV compound, all of it was temporary," Boehm said of the world's fastest fire hazard. "It was a miracle they were able to pull it off, but it was kind of fun, too (making it happen)."

That might have been the most amazing thing about the weekend, that the race came off with few cross words being exchanged. Officials on both sides said the cooperation between the IRL and LVMS was remarkable in a professional sport where egos run side by side with high expectations.

"One thing I want to emphasize is that the IRL brought in a team that was organized and helpful and we became friends," Bisci said. "They never pointed so much as a finger while we were bumbling around and that was probably what got us through the weekend."

The IRL was experiencing growing pains of its own, due to a similarly ambitious schedule. The Las Vegas race was just the fifth in the history of the IRL, which was launched as an alternative to the established Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) series just nine months earlier.

"At that time, the IRL was in its infancy, too," said Jan Shaffer, who the league sent to Las Vegas to help Bisci run the press room. "They were new and we were new and so the experience level of what it takes to be successful was pretty minimal.

"Everybody was excited just to be doing it. It was one of those deals where we're going to have a race, so let's everybody get together to figure it out."

In those days, the IRL basically consisted of Luyendyk, car owner A.J. Foyt and about two dozen washed-up CART drivers and/or guys that nobody had ever heard of. The latter group included Tony Stewart, who would go on to become a NASCAR superstar, but spent the latter part of his Las Vegas visit in the hospital, after breaking his pelvis in a Turn 2 crash.

Richie Hearn won the race, managing to avoid Stewart's shunt and several others that drivers blamed on the sand and dust and empty concrete bags that blew across the track from start to finish.

"Yeah, they didn't have some of the amenities and there was some wind and some crashes and maybe there were some issues with tires," said Hearn, who moved to Henderson shortly after winning at LVMS. "It was blazingly fast ... but I never had a problem all day long. I think the biggest problem were all the people who were upset because they couldn't get in."

Ah, yes, the traffic jam. While traffic is still a concern on race day, it was a disaster on opening weekend. Track officials had planned for a crowd of 20,000 and were overwhemed when a throng of more than 67,000 showed up.

The crowd would have been even larger, had thousands of fans not turned away after being stuck in the long lines on I-15 and Las Vegas Boulevard that simply did not move.

"We knew that traffic was going to be a problem because in those days, there was no (Interstate) 215 and Las Vegas Boulevard was a narrow two-lane road," Bisci said. "There was no access like there is now.

"I think we sold something like 20,000 tickets, and then the decision was made to paper the entire western United States with free tickets. A race isn't like a Las Vegas show, where you leave a half-hour before it starts, and unfortunately, one of the things the media picked up on was people ripping up their tickets when they got stuck in traffic, making a U-turn, and going home."

But Sunday, nearly all of them of them will be back. Along with the in-laws, an uncle or two and the neighbor kids.

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