THE ELEVATOR

Wednesday, May 23, 2007 | 7:06 a.m.

Who's headed toward the penthouse on the local sports scene - and who's getting the shaft.

GOING UP

Las Vegas Gladiators

It's sweet anytime you snap a nine-game losing streak, as the local Arena Football League team did this past weekend in beating Utah, 54-53. But the victory had to be particularly satisfying for head coach Danton Barto and his assistants, who were informed five days before the game that they would be fired at season's end.

Memorial Day Weekend

For American auto racing fans, Sunday will be like Christmas, New Year's and the Fourth of July rolled into one. What better way to spend part of a three-day weekend than watching the world's greatest race (the Indy 500) and NASCAR's longest race (The Coca-Cola 600) and following the exploits of several hometown hot shoes?

GOING DOWN

Busch brothers

Las Vegas natives Kurt and Kyle Busch received the loudest ovation during Saturday night's NASCAR all-star race at Lowe's Motor Speedway near Charlotte, N.C. Unfortunately, the cheers came when the stock-car bad boys crashed each other out late in the million-dollars-to-win race.

UNLV golf

For only the third time in 19 years, UNLV's men's golf team won't be in the field for the NCAA Division I Men's Golf Championships, which is tantamount to Duke failing to reach the NCAA basketball tournament. The Rebels were seeded third in the NCAA West Regional but finished tied for 16th; only the top 10 teams advanced to the NCAA Championships.

NHL on NBC

Further evidence that the NHL has become almost an afterthought on the American sports landscape: NBC cut away from Saturday's playoff game between the Buffalo Sabres and Ottawa Senators just before overtime so the network could show an hour of Preakness pre-race coverage. The extra 9:32 of the hockey game was relegated to Versus, which is available in almost one-third fewer homes than NBC.

Lowe's Motor Speedway

There were an awful lot of empty seats in the grandstands for the start of Saturday night's NASCAR Nextel All-Star Challenge, stock-car racing's all-star race, at the speedway. It's time for NASCAR to give serious thought to rotating the race among tracks that host points-paying races.