NASCAR 2004: 50 years of big-time racing

Thursday, March 4, 2004 | 10:45 a.m.

With state-of-the-art Las Vegas Motor Speedway about to mark its seventh year as host of one of NASCAR's most popular races, and two local racers now driving full-time on the Nextel Cup circuit, big-time stock car racing has taken its rightful place with the city's blackjack tables, showrooms and all-night buffets.

But although Las Vegas has a long and colorful auto racing history, the major league stuff consisted mostly of the open-wheel and sports car variety before $200 million LVMS opened with an Indy Racing League event in 1996.

Major league auto racing made its debut here exactly a half-century ago with with a national championship race, which is what the Indy-car championship was called in 1954. The race was on an old horse racing track behind the old Thunderbird hotel and won by Jimmy Bryan, who would go on to capture the Indianapolis 500 four years later.

NASCAR made its Las Vegas debut in 1955, when Norm Nelson drove one of car owner Carl Kiekhaefer's big Chrysler 300s to a two-lap victory on the same one-mile dirt track. The race had to be stopped at regular intervals to water down the track, but the traction lasted only a few laps before the cars started sliding around in the dust. The race eventually was called on darkness.

For obvious reasons, NASCAR didn't return in 1956. And when the Las Vegas Sportsdrome, a paved fifth-mile oval that opened behind the Silver Slipper casino on the Strip in 1946, closed in 1957, stock car racing in the valley went on a lengthy hiatus.

It didn't return until 1965, when Craig Road Speedway opened. In addition to its Saturday night program for local racers, Craig Road also held open competition races that attracted top-flight regional leadfoots trying to break into the big time, such as Mark Martin, Ernie Irvan, Derrike Cope and Dick Trickle.

When Craig Speedway closed in the 1980s, it was replaced by Las Vegas Speedway Park, which later was absorbed by Las Vegas Motor Speedway and became the Bullring, a slick little paved oval that has evolved into one of the country's premier short tracks.

But while local weekend warriors have been trading paint for the better part of 50 years, Las Vegas didn't get its first taste of international motor sport until 1966, when Stardust Raceway prematurely opened for business.

The not-quite-finished 3-mile road course, situated at what is now the Spring Valley housing development near Rainbow Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue, hosted major auto races from 1966-68, including the prestigious Can-Am Challenge for prototype sports cars and the United States Auto Club (USAC) champ car series, featuring the stars and cars of the Indianapolis 500.

A veritable Who's Who of American and international road racing descended on the desert west of town as icons such as Dan Gurney, Mario Andretti, Parnelli Jones, A.J. Foyt and Al and Bobby Unser started their engines here.

Others who competed at Stardust included Bruce McLaren, Denny Hulme, Mark Donohue, Chris Amon, Peter Revson, Gordon Johncock, Johnny Rutherford, George Follmer, Jim Hall, Sam Posey, Lloyd Ruby, Joe Leonard, Gary Bettenhausen, Roger McCluskey, Art Pollard and Swede Savage.

"Half the Formula One field was here on any given weekend," Hulme told veteran auto racing writer Pete Lyons, recalling the stature and depth of American road racing in the late 1960s. "That was great."

Eventually, Stardust, which lacked the amenities of today's world class circuits, was sold to real estate developers, and major league auto racing once again disappeared from the Las Vegas sports scene. But when it returned, it returned in the biggest way possible.

The globe-trotting Formula One world championship made its Las Vegas debut in 1981, as the world's best drivers and most expensive racing cars zipped around a temporary circuit in what was then the back parking lot at Caesars Palace.

Australian Alan Jones, just a year removed from his World Driving Championship, won the 1981 race and a year later, the late Michele Alboreto showed the way to the victory podium. But although the drivers and their fans loved the setting, the temporarly circuit left a lot to be desired.

"You can't hold a Grand Prix in a bloody car park," the great Jackie Stewart would say in retrospect.

But the Caesars Grand Prix pressed on, becoming the domain of the Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) Indy-style cars in 1983 and 1984, with the track reconfigured into a modified oval consisting of five turns.

The unique design produced some exciting racing, with Mario Andretti winning in 1983 and Tom Sneva outdueling Al Unser Sr. in the 1984 season finale, in which Andretti clinched the season championship by surviving a spectacular late-race spin with John Paul Jr.

But the event, which proved beneficial to Caesars but did little to increase revenue for its neighbors up and down the Strip, capitulated after the 1984 victory banquet. It's still possible to take a lap around the old racing circuit, but you had better bring your credit card, as the Forum Shops at Caesars were erected on what used to be the front straightaway.

With the exception of off-road racing, which spawned the careers of four-time Indy 500 winner Rick Mears and current Nextel Cup stars Jimmie Johnson and Robby Gordon, the demise of the Caesars race was the last major scale auto racing in Las Vegas, until the blueprint for LVMS was unveiled in the mid-1990s.

Longtime observers of the local auto racing scene continue to marvel at what the 1.5-mile speedway, purchased by Bruton Smith in 1998, has wrought.

"Every time I go out there and look around I have the same reaction: Ohmigod!" said Mike Henle, who has been covering auto racing in the Las Vegas Valley in some shape or form since 1966.

"I remember covering the Mint 400 from the back of a pickup truck and thinking that was a big deal. It just amazes me to see how far we have come. And where this thing goes from here, who knows?"