Ron Kantowski checks out the Vegas Grand Prix course through the windshield of a ‘96 Chevy S-10 pickup truck

Friday, April 6, 2007 | 7:16 a.m.

Hey, Sebastien Bourdais , you think passing Paul Tracy on full tanks and cold tires is difficult? Try getting around a cabby with an attitude on Fourth Street during rush hour behind the wheel of a 1996 Chevy S-10 that knocks and pings.

Bourdais, the three-time reigning Champ Car series champion, and his 200-mph racing pals will be takin' it to the downtown streets this weekend in the inaugural Vegas Grand Prix.

But if they really want a challenge that will rotate their tires right off the rims, they should stick around until Monday , when the temporary 12-turn, 2.44-mile circuit is reopened to the cabbies and the delivery truck drivers and the cigar-chomping bullies in forest green Cadillacs who think they own the road.

Forget the Indianapolis 500. If it's the ultimate test of man and machine you seek, try getting around downtown Las Vegas at 4:15 p.m. when the traffic lights are out of synch.

That's what I did this past Monday, a few hours before they started to close the course to Average Joes so it could be made ready for Exceptional Sebastiens like Bourdais - a necessary evil, which, no doubt, probably had the cocktail waitresses who use the employee lot at the Golden Nugget steaming like an old Offenhauser engine.

But driving the course with the concrete walls and barriers and imposing catch fencing in place was, for lack of a better expression, pretty darn cool.

I don't have a bumper sticker on my truck that says, "My Other Car Is a Panoz DP01 Cosworth." So I'm afraid I will never know what a "hot" lap, which is what these lead foots call a practice circuit made at roughly the speed of light, feels like.

But if you want to experience a "cool" lap of the downtown Las Vegas street circuit, move those cheeseburger wrappers and empty beer cans aside and hop in.

Start/finish line

This is where it begins and ends. Unless, of course, you draw the ire of Tracy, who makes his home here and drives his race car as if a battering ram were attached to the front wing assembly. Then your race will probably end against the wall.

The start-finish line is on Grand Central Parkway, strategically located between a giant grandstand on the left and a giant grandstand on the right.

The one on the left is uncovered. This is where race fans will pay good money to get a nasty sunburn. The one on the right has a massive canopy . This is where CEOs will dine on fine meats and cheeses and try not to get any on their tasseled loafers.

The end of the main straight is in the shadow of the World Market Center. Literally in the shadow of the World Market Center. Of course, you'll be able to say the same thing about Henderson before long. The World Market Center is getting so humongous that when King Kong climbed the back side of it the other night he was mistaken for Cheetah, the chimpanzee.

Turn 1

After speeding past the hospitality tents and souvenir trailers like bats out of H-E-double gear shifts, the cars will dive into Turn 1, or Government Center Corner. The entry to Turn 1 is almost wide enough to land a DC-10, so this is where most - if not all - of the passing should take place.

Turn 2

There's a slight bend before you go under the Union Pacific railroad tracks on Bonneville Avenue. The race organizers call this Turn 2, but it's not much of a turn. A kink is more like it. Although, as you will read, that probably would be a better name for Turn 3. So it's under the bridge and left on Main.

Turn 3

Turn 3 is the nastiest corner on the circuit - not because it's all that tricky to negotiate, but because the Adult Superstore and 24-Hour Arcade sits smack dab at the apex.

I wonder whether this is what city and race officials had in mind when they spoke of how the event would call attention to Las Vegas' glamorous image.

South Main Street

Or maybe it was the South Main Street short chute they had in mind. After the bump-and-grind at bookstore corner, the cars will pass two bail bond joints, a rooming house that used to be a jail, a Greyhound bus station, a combination liquor store and market, two dozen news racks chock-full of pamphlets featuring naked women and an under-repair domicile that is being converted into a halfway home for the homeless, but, back in the day, was known as the Victory brothel.

"You can still see the safes in the floor where the girls would drop the money," said Kari Case, whose mother bought the place and the adjoining liquor store and hotel about 18 months ago.

We were told that at the Victory lobby, dolls would be placed on the bar. If the doll was upright, the lady in her room was available. But if the doll was laid flat/prone, the room was well, occupied.

In NASCAR, I think they call this "bump drafting."

Turn 4

500...400...300...200...100. White markers with bright red numerals count down the braking points to Turn 4, a right-hander onto Carson Avenue. The corner isn't very remarkable, other than it sits at the entrance to the Plaza Hotel, which once hosted a dinner show called "Natalie Needs a Nightie," starring Bambi Jr., the former Las Vegas stripper who divorced talk show host Montel Williams.

That trivia tidbit and 49 cents will get race fans a shrimp cocktail at the Golden Gate across the street.

Turns 5, 6, 7 and 8

With the exception of the leasing office at Neonopolis, this U-shaped complex of 90-degree corners behind the Golden Nugget will be the slowest part of the circuit. It'll be a single-file procession through here, but if you're fortunate enough to be invited up to the Nugget parking garage, you'll be able to read the sponsorship logos on the cars. At least the ones that have them.

Turn 9

Back onto Carson, the cars will make their way toward Fitz Corner, or Turn 9. The fifth-floor parking garage at Fitzgeralds would be another ideal place to watch the race.

Word of caution: As I steered the S-10 onto Fourth Street, I was nearly overcome by a foul odor that was a cross between rotten eggs and the infield Porta Pottis at Talladega.

My advice would be to inhale the methanol fumes coming from the racing engines and hold them in until at least the first full-course yellow.

Fourth Street

Seeing the race cars scream down Fourth toward Fremont Street will be the neatest thing to happen down there since The Edge played acoustic guitar on U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" music video.

What are the chances that Tracy will take a sudden right-hand turn and crash through the empty storefronts at Neonopolis, putting it out of its misery?

Probably not good enough.

Turns 10, 11 and 12

After a sharp left onto Ogden Avenue, the cars will begin accelerating again, zipping past the trendy Triple George Grill and Hogs and Heifers Saloon and past at least one guy wearing a Las Vegas Choppers T-shirt taking a long pull on a 40- ounce bottle of Miller High Life.

"I think this is as neat as hell," a race fan named Kelly from Beaumont, Texas, said as the S-10 idled in traffic.

When the light turned green, my Chevy belched a plume of oil smoke and sped - or at least rolled toward - the Hard Rock Hotel tunnel, which for my lack of money will be the ultimate place to watch the race.

There is a small grandstand on top of the underpass that will afford the well-connected a straight-on view of the field at full song before it dips into the tunnel under the railroad tracks and back onto Grand Central Parkway. The long, looping left-hand Turn 12 will take Bourdais - or whatever foreign-born driver you have never heard of who might be leading - back to the start-finish line.

By then, a waitress exposing way too much of her side pods will be pouring the CEOs in the suites another glass of Cristal, being extra careful not to spill any on their tassels.

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