Las Vegas Sun

March 18, 2024

LOOKING IN ON: MOTOR SPORTS

Jimmy Vasser, the Champ Car team owner, doesn't know whether his team will have enough cars to allow him to come out of retirement and race in the inaugural Vegas Grand Prix next April.

Jimmy Vasser, the semi-retired driver, said he wants to race around the streets of downtown Las Vegas so bad that he joked he would consider driving for a competing team if he had to.

As he stood in front of the downtown World Market Center recently and surveyed what will be the race course's first turn, Vasser sounded an awful lot like a man who was planning to be in the cockpit of a 750-horsepower open-wheel car on April 8.

"I would definitely leave that door open," said Vasser, who has not driven in a Champ Car event since April of this year but has not officially retired.

"It would be nice to run Vegas and Long Beach, but I think the cars are going to be (in short supply) at the front end of the season next year and maybe it's going to make it more difficult."

Because Champ Car is debuting a new chassis in 2007, Vasser said, it's possible that his team, PKV Racing, could have only three chassis for its two drivers - Oriol Servia and Katherine Legge - when the season opens in Las Vegas. Vasser said his primary goal was to build PKV Racing into a championship contender and he would not do anything that would detract from the team's two drivers.

Vasser, who has driven the 14-turn, 2.4-mile course several times in a passenger car, said he likes the circuit - with one exception.

"There are going to be some (90-degree turns), but sometimes that creates excitement and good passing opportunities," he said. "That's street racing. We take what we have to work with and we try to polish it up and see what kind of a show you can put on.

"I would like to see them try to straighten out this braking zone (on Grand Central Parkway) into Turn 1. I told them if it was straighter, it would be a better passing zone."

Vasser, who won the series championship in 1996, said the addition of street races in Las Vegas and Phoenix in 2007 will only strengthen the series that has struggled in the wake of the American open-wheel split of 1996.

"We're going to start the season in Las Vegas and then we're going to go straight to Long Beach, which is going to be great, and Phoenix is going to end the season," he said. "It just goes to show that Champ Car is chipping away at it; we're making some headway. Nobody's wondering if we're going to survive the next season ... The series is growing now."

Back on track

Five days after being involved in a violent crash in the Sept. 24 Champ Car race at Road America, Legge was back behind the driver's seat last weekend for a test session at Sebring International Raceway.

Legge was not hurt in the crash and said she had no qualms about getting back in the car so soon after the incident.

"As soon as I drove out of pit lane for the first run, I felt like I always have," she said. "I had no issues getting back in the car ... It actually felt good."

Legge will be back in the No. 20 PKV Racing entry Oct. 22 for the Lexmark Indy 300 on the streets of Surfers Paradise, Australia.

Trucks at Talladega

The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series will stage its inaugural race at the high-banked 2.66-mile Talladega Superspeedway on Saturday, and Las Vegas native Brendan Gaughan says he can't wait.

"They call it a white-knuckle weekend, and it's very aptly named," he said. "You definitely are holding on - you hold your breath a few times.

"You know when you're four-wide, if you're the third guy in line you look below you and you know there are two guys inside and one guy outside, you take a deep breath and think, 'Ooh, I don't want to be here.' But the Craftsman Truck Series has some great drivers, and we'll get through it."

Gaughan posted his best finish as a NASCAR Nextel Cup Series driver at Talladega when he finished fourth in the fall 2004 race.

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