LOOKING IN ON: MOTOR SPORTS

Thursday, Sept. 21, 2006 | 7:30 a.m.

It's difficult to find a NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series driver who has anything negative to say about the newly reconfigured 1.5-mile Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

But that doesn't mean the changes made to the track have been greeted with open arms by the drivers who will put the new track to the test in Saturday's Smith's Las Vegas 350 truck race.

"It was such a nice track the way it was, it's almost like a waste of money," said Todd Bodine, who won last year's truck race at LVMS and was one of four drivers who took part in a tire test at LVMS last month.

"But I'll give them credit: They did a really good job with the racetrack - I was pleasantly surprised."

Banking in the corners was increased from 12 to 20 degrees to increase speeds and improve the quality of racing, and the entire surface has been repaved since it hosted the NASCAR Nextel Cup and Busch series in March.

Brendan Gaughan, a Las Vegas native and another former Truck Series winner at LVMS, is another driver who did not welcome the change.

"I liked that old track," Gaughan said. "It was smooth as glass and they did a great job. But this place is going to be fun; it's got some characteristics that Vegas didn't have before."

Among the new characteristics, according to Dennis Setzer, are some bumps that weren't present in the old racing surface.

"It's got a couple little bumps and stuff in it," Setzer said. "Each track has its own characteristics and maybe that'll be Vegas' new characteristic. It's not bad, though."

Like Bodine, Setzer seemed amazed that Speedway Motorsports Inc., which owns LVMS, would go to the trouble - and expense - to fix what wasn't broken.

"It's hard to believe that someone with a perfectly good speedway would go try to improve it this much it's just amazing," Setzer said.

Gaughan said after the two-day tire test that he thought the track would lend itself to side-by-side racing beginning with Saturday night's event.

"I do think that right from the get-go it's going to be at least a two-groove racetrack, and it may get to three grooves in its first race ever just because the parabolic banking is really nice," Gaughan said of the variable banking that ranges from 18 to 20 degrees from the bottom of the track to the top.

Based on what he saw in testing, Setzer said multiple-groove racing Saturday night might be "wishful thinking" so soon after the track was repaved.

"The bottom groove was the preferred line in testing and that's where everybody's going to practice when they're here to race," Setzer said. "A lot of these new tracks, the racing continuously gets better year after year, and that'll probably be the same trait here."

Early workouts

All NASCAR truck teams will be allowed to test for up to seven hours Friday at LVMS as they try to get acclimated to the new racing surface.

The track will be open from noon to 4 p.m. and from 5 to 8 p.m. for optional practices. Spectator gates will open Friday at 11 a.m. and admission is free.

Also noted

Number of Truck Series races Jack Sprague has won at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (1996 and 1998)

Number of drivers who competed in the inaugural truck race at LVMS in 1996 who are entered in this year's race (Sprague, Mike Skinner, Ron Hornaday Jr., Mike Bliss and Ted Musgrave)

"I have a pole and a win on the old track; so I really liked the track the way it was. But I like to go fast, and since the track is faster now, I'm sure that I will like it even more."

NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series driver David Starr, on the "new" Las Vegas Motor Speedway