Las Vegas Sun

May 4, 2024

Dale Jarrett bringing race experience attraction to Las Vegas Motor Speedway

Saturday NASCAR Races at Las Vegas Motor Speedway

Tom Donoghue/www.donoghuephotography.com

The NASCAR 2011 races at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Saturday, March 5.

Las Vegas is getting a new tourist attraction in the form of a second stock car racing experience school at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Dale Jarrett Racing Adventure of Hickory, N.C, announced Monday an agreement to begin operations for a western U.S. hub at the Speedway, which already has a Richard Petty Driving Experience.

These programs provide experiences in which participants can either ride along with a professional instructor or drive NASCAR-type race cars themselves. While they are called schools, they're actually set up as one-day attractions and don't purport to teach people to be professional race car drivers.

The stock car programs are in addition to open-wheel Indy-type and exotic car-type schools at the Speedway.

“This points out how much of a destination Las Vegas is for these race experiences,” LVMS President Chris Powell said in an interview, adding the Petty and Jarrett programs are the best-known stock car programs at NASCAR-sanctioned tracks.

He said the track used to have an exclusive deal with the Richard Petty Driving Experience, which will continue to operate at the track on a non-exclusive basis.

“Our relationship with the Petty Experience is as strong as ever,” Powell said. “There’s plenty of business to go around for these experiences.”

Dale Jarrett Racing Adventure said the agreement announced Monday includes 34 event days in 2012. The company on its website is selling tickets for the Las Vegas program beginning Jan. 20.

Prices begin at $195 for a four-lap ride.

Dale Jarrett also operates at tracks including Talladega Superspeedway, Charlotte Motor Speedway, Atlanta Motor Speedway, Kentucky Speedway, Chicagoland Speedway, Texas Motor Speedway and Homestead-Miami Speedway.

The company said the agreement with the Las Vegas Motor Speedway will allow it to expand into Phoenix and Southern California.

With Las Vegas receiving nearly 40 million visitors annually, and 20 percent of those visitors attending paid attractions outside of casino-based activities and shows, Dale Jarrett Racing Adventure said its potential customer base is about 6 million visitors per year.

“We intend on working closely with the hotels and casinos to develop packages that will allow us to capture a growing segment of that market in the coming months and years,” Dale Jarrett Racing Adventure said in a statement.

Terms of the deal with the Las Vegas Motor Speedway weren’t disclosed, but records show tracks can earn hundreds of thousands of dollars in rental income from the schools.

Dale Jarrett Racing Adventure said in a regulatory filing that in August 2010, it signed an agreement with Talladega Superspeedway for its ride-along and driving experiences and would rent the track for a minimum of 60 days during 2011 for $450,000.

Such schools make investments consisting of cars, instructors and other staff. Dale Jarrett, for instance said in its 2010 annual report it has 15 cars for its East Coast hub and hauls them from track to track for the instructional and experience programs.

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