Thursday, March 10, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Program targets street racers

Speedway launches new event for car and motorcycle owners

A race car driver once said that driving on a track is safer than on the street because on the street, vehicles move in all directions.

Chris Powell, general manager of the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, offered that anecdote Wednesday while announcing another effort to get illegal street racers onto the speedway's track.

On Thursday nights starting March 17, motorists with hot cars will be able to race others with hot cars in a safe and legal way.

"We have talked to members of the groups racing on the street and Thursday night seems to be the popular night," Powell said. "We don't believe this will be the end of street racing in Clark County. We do hope we can save some lives."

Like the speedway's Friday Midnight Mayhem, a similar 3-year-old program that has attracted as many as 550 racers, the new Thursday Night Street Wars program will be open to any licensed driver with proof of insurance, speedway officials said.

The Street Wars are scheduled to take place between 8 p.m. and 1 a.m. Racers pay a $20 entry fee and spectators will be charged a $5 fee.

All cars and motorcycles must be driven to the race track. They must be street legal and pass a safety inspection, speedway officials said.

Unlike the Friday night races, the driver with the fastest time on Thursday evenings will win $100 and a trophy.

Sheriff Bill Young said the Thursday program is another weapon in the Metropolitan Police Department's arsenal to curtail illegal street racing, a popular pastime since the 1960s that has seen a resurgence fueled by Hollywood films that glamorize the sometimes deadly activity.

Police helicopter crews have broken up street races and the police have tried to infiltrate the groups staging the illegal races, but street racing continues to tie up police resources needed for fighting other crimes, he said.

"It's not just racing. In the last few years, we have had several deaths," Young said. "We have tried a lot of things at Metro to prevent it."

The speedway's program is a rare, wonderful asset for the community because it provides a controlled, safe setting for public racing, Young said.

For instance, a car that crashed recently during an illegal street race in Las Vegas was equipped with a spare tire that the driver would have been prohibited from using if he were racing at the speedway, he said.

Young said he doesn't believe the program promotes street racing. He said street racing has been around since the 1960s, and the speedway's programs are just one way to help prevent the problem.

"We have not been able to convince some people, but we have to keep trying," Young said of illegal street racers. "I don't look at it (the programs) as caving into something. We are giving them an opportunity to do something illegal in a legal fashion."