Friday, January 17, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

COLUMN: Jeff Wolf

More tickets for Cup race -- in '04

Tickets will be scarce for Nevada's biggest sports event.

And drivers will be nonexistent for a race in 2004.

A couple of items from our world of motorsports ...

• LVMS EXPANSION -- For the past couple of months, Las Vegas Motor Speedway officials have been saying ticket sales for its March 2 NASCAR Winston Cup race were selling at a record pace.

The crowd of about 137,500 at last year's race was the biggest for a sports event this side of Texas.

The speedway has been promoting its special "triple-play" ticket package hot and heavy in Las Vegas the past month and in some racing media nationally.

Word from a speedway mole is that few tickets remain in the 120,000-seat permanent grandstand this year, so count on the UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 to sell out more than a couple of weeks beforehand.

But the ticket market could open a little next year. A member of my Big Ear Posse says that, a few days after the Cup race, construction will begin on 20,000 permanent seats above and/or behind those overlooking the fourth turn.

Chris Powell, the speedway general manager, has said selling more seats on the front stretch wouldn't be a problem.

In 2004, it looks as if he'll have them.

But for now, the "triple play" is your best move. The $88 package provides tickets to the March 1 NASCAR Busch race, a spot in the 15,000-seat temporary grandstands set up in the third turn for the Cup race and a ducat for the Sept. 27 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race.

Last year's promotion filled the added grandstands for the Cup race and nearly created an all-time record for a Busch race.

While most buyers didn't appear to show up for the truck race, the track was able to defer a percentage of the "triple-play" revenue onto the truck race ledger, making it close to a break-even race.

• DESERT STORMERS -- This one is too bizarre for me to make up.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the central research and development organization for the U.S. Department of Defense, is planning an off-road race in February 2004 from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.

The race will be exclusively for "autonomous" ground vehicles -- full-size desert racing vehicles that won't be allowed a driver or passengers.

Preliminary rules say "vehicles must be unmanned (no humans or other biological entities on board) and autonomous. They must not be remotely driven."

The purpose of the race, according to information provided on the Internet at darpa.mil/grandchallenge, is to "encourage the accelerated development of autonomous vehicle technologies that could be applied to military requirements."

A detailed set of rules and complete race description will be released Feb. 22 on the DARPA website.

The $1 million winner-take-all payout might seem like another government boondoggle, but the Feds probably would have spent several billion dollars to learn what desert racing experts like the Herbst family already know.

Fortunately, entries are limited to American citizens.

Jeff Wolf's motorsports column is published Friday. He can be reached at 383-0247 or jwolf@reviewjournal.com.