A few bumps in the road

Wednesday, April 11, 2007 | 7:35 a.m.

Some notes, quotes and observations wrapping up the inaugural Vegas Grand Prix on the streets of downtown Las Vegas:

Although all those associated with putting on Sunday's Champ Car World Series season opener said they were ecstatic with the first-time event, race organizers already are addressing problems that cropped up during the weekend.

The single biggest issue that owners Dale Jensen and Bradley Yonover and President Jim Freudenberg plan to take up before next year's race concerns moving people into and out of downtown and within the 2.4-mile circuit .

One of the biggest complaints from fans attending the race was the long lines to catch one of the shuttle buses from the paddock area to downtown, and vice versa.

"I hate lines," Jensen said. "If I see a line longer than 50 feet, it makes me nervous. Those are the little things I look for. Ingress and egress - (we need to) make it very easy for people to get into the area and get out of the area and to do it in a very pleasant way.

"I'm sure there are a lot of hidden little land mines still left out there - complaints that people have and things like that - and we'll get those mitigated."

Plans for pedestrian bridges over the railroad tracks that bisected the circuit were scuttled when the railroad company's insurance balked. As a result, it was difficult for fans on the pit side of the railroad tracks to get downtown without taking a shuttle bus.

Freudenberg said there would be crossover bridges next year "come hell or high water" to help alleviate the crush on the shuttle buses.

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Freudenberg said he doubted next year's Vegas Grand Prix would be held on Easter Sunday, which falls on March 23 in 2008.

"It's not confirmed yet, but I hope it's the first weekend of April again," he said. "We don't want to interfere with NASCAR and we don't want to interfere with NHRA, and the first week of April kind of fits in where it works for everybody."

He was referring to the NASCAR weekend and the spring NHRA event that are held annually at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Not playing nice

Speaking of Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the track showed a rare lack of class with its xenophobic newspaper ad promoting Saturday's short-track racing at The Bullring.

The ad, a clear cheap shot at the Champ Car event going on downtown, prominently featured the line "Real American Racers!" with the word "American" underlined.

Only two of the 17 racers in the field for Sunday's Vegas Grand Prix were born in America.

Funny, we don't recall the speedway having a problem promoting Colombian driver Juan Pablo Montoya during its NASCAR test in January and the races in March, or using Canadian-born drivers Paul Tracy, Alex Tagliani and Patrick Carpentier - all Las Vegas residents - to publicize the Champ Car races at LVMS in 2004 and 2005.

Say what?

Dutch driver Robert Doornbos, who raced in Formula One in 2005 and 2006, was caught off guard late in Sunday's race when he was advised, over the team radio, to conserve fuel.

Doornbos' engineer "kept telling me, ' You have to save more fuel, more fuel,' " he said. "I was like, 'I'm racing. What do you want me to do, valet parking or something?' "

Doornbos finished second in his Champ Car debut.