Friday, December 17, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

JEFF WOLF: NASCAR stays busy during holidays

NASCAR has eliminated "offseason" from its vocabulary.

Top drivers for Evernham Motorsports, Richard Childress Racing and Roush Racing were planning to test their cars this week at Kentucky Speedway.

And we're still awaiting word on what Las Vegan Brendan Gaughan's 2005 season will entail. He certainly will drive in at least half of the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series races. But Gaughan's itinerary also could include a few stints behind the wheel of Rusty Wallace's NASCAR Busch Series car, and a big Cup series contract is a possibility too.

A couple of developments beyond the racetrack this week kept America's premier racing series in the news, and neither item bodes well for Las Vegas Motor Speedway's prospects for a second Cup race.

The announced merger of cell-phone companies Sprint and Nextel would create the third-largest U.S. mobile phone company. Adding Sprint as a partner to NASCAR's biggest sponsor could lead to a second Cup race at Kansas Speedway -- considering Sprint's headquarters in Overland Park, Kan., are about 20 miles away.

The merger is expected to be finalized by the end of the year, and a Nextel statement indicates no anticipated changes next season.

"We expect our relationship with NASCAR to continue and to prosper, and the new Sprint Nextel team is enthusiastic about the NASCAR relationship," the statement said.

It had better be, considering that nine years remain on the 10-year Nextel contract with NASCAR at reportedly around $70 million a year.

One suggestion for next year could be a name change for the new 10-race championship shootout. Instead of "Chase for the Nextel Cup Championship" it could be the "Sprint for the Nextel Cup Championship."

It's been estimated that Nextel involvement with NASCAR led to the sale of 40,000 NASCAR-themed Nextel cell phones and that a considerable number of brand-loyal race fans switched to Nextel service.

While NASCAR's title sponsor has become somewhat of a party line, don't scoff at NASCAR looking to take care of the Kansas track before the one here.

The Kansas track is owned by International Speedway Corp., a publicly held corporation controlled by the France family, which owns and controls NASCAR.

And NASCAR, although it pretends to act independently of ISC largely through fear of monopolistic accusations, awarded second Cup races to ISC-owned tracks in the Los Angeles and Phoenix areas beginning in 2005.

Granting two more dates to those tracks, which draw considerably smaller crowds than the 140,000-plus in Las Vegas, clearly shows favoritism to ISC, NASCAR's illegitimate stepchild.

Further threatening another Cup date in Las Vegas is news that ISC plunked down $100 million for a 450-acre waterfront tract in Staten Island, N.Y. ISC wants to build an 80,000-seat, three-quarter-mile oval there that could be ready to host a Cup race in five years.

The only scenario on the horizon for Las Vegas to get a second Cup event would be for its owner, Speedway Motorsports Inc., to relocate one of its less successful events. One of the two races near Atlanta makes sense.

But SMI and local speedway officials might have waited too long to consider such a move.

With five Cup races this year within 400 miles of Las Vegas, the litmus test will be what happens to attendance March 13 at Southern Nevada's eighth annual Cup race.

Visitors have made up about 65 percent of the crowds at Las Vegas Cup races. How many fans from cold climates might opt for Los Angeles or Phoenix instead of Las Vegas?

It's doubtful NASCAR/ISC would mind seeing a couple thousand ticket sales shift from Las Vegas to one of its tracks.

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