NASCAR star Kyle Busch and Las Vegas Aviators president Don Logan express empathy to loved ones after being honored this week for their work in their fields.
Ron Kantowski
Ron Kantowski is a sports columnist for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, covering a variety of topics and the Las Vegas sports scene.
rkantowski@reviewjournal.com … @ronkantowski on Twitter. 702-383-0352
On Sunday when NASCAR drivers with whom he regularly traded paint for 15 seasons will be starting engines in Phoenix, Casey Mears wil be eating dirt in the Mint 400.
Home-schooled Las Vegan to receive high school diploma from track president Eddie Gossage during prerace ceremony.
A couple of years ago in this space I wrote about David Gilliland, one of the back-of-the-pack NASCAR Sprint Cup drivers for whom I’ve always had admiration and affinity.
He was such a fixture at Las Vegas Motor Speedway they gave him space No. 1 in the media parking lot. Then when Brian Hilderbrand took a position in the LVMS public relations department before last year’s NASCAR weekend, I inherited his parking spot.
These NASCAR rules changes about ride heights and whatnot might drive the drivers and their teams crazy, but race fans love ‘em. The changes meant extra practice sessions on Thursday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and race fans got in free.
Joey Saldana, aka the Brownsburg Bullet, collects World of Outlaws sprint car victories — he has 94 — and helmets of other racing drivers. He has about 125 of those. Until recently, though, he didn’t have a Steve Kinser helmet.
Long before his 22-year run on “The Tonight Show,” our columnist found Jay Leno in Albuquerque, waiting to catch a flight to Farmington, N.M., to do stand-up comedy at the Best Western.
The first car I owned in Las Vegas was a pre-owned 1983 Subaru GL sedan. Its official color was Extra Black. When I signed the cocktail napkin/lease, its unofficial color was Sunbaked Gray. Never buy a car with an Extra Black paint job in the desert.
And just like that, NASCAR Cup-style racing is about to turn Sweet 16 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and so it can be said that, yes, John Fogerty was right: Big wheels do keep on turnin’.
Thanks to these new Generation-6 stock cars, there is an extra day of NASCAR practice at Las Vegas Motor Speedway today, to get them dialed in here. I would arrive early not to beat traffic, but because hearing an auto racing engine at full song reverberate off cavernous and mostly empty grandstands is one of sport’s simple pleasures.
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