Gambling, racing and, yes, worship

Even with Walter Kennedy's face lit only by a three-quarter moon, his furrowed brow stood out like a flat tire on an open-wheel racing car.

A cool, stiff breeze played with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas student's hair and tie as he stood near a makeshift chapel atop Binion's 25-story downtown casino and awaited attendees for a sunrise Easter service sponsored by ChampCar Ministries.

"I've been so worried no one will show up," Kennedy said. "Remember, this is Sin City. You might have to look hard to find a Christian."

Nearly four hours later and just a couple of blocks away, as drivers practiced under a sunny morning sky for the inaugural Vegas Grand Prix, Winifred Robinson, a Christian, also worried.

"I wonder if I'll be able to hear Mass," the Hawaii resident said, nearly shouting as 300-horsepower racing machines came within 75 yards of St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church, the parish at Bridger Avenue and Casino Center Boulevard that she attends when in Las Vegas.

"I can't believe they're doing this on Easter. It's just terrible," she said. "I'll never come back here at Easter again if they continue to do this."

Make no mistake: Easter 2007 in Las Vegas was different.

It wasn't that beer-drinking tourists such as Beth and Jim Hoos of Baltimore were at downtown poker tables at 6:30 a.m. on the most important day of the Christian faith. Casinos are open 24-7, 365 days a year in Las Vegas, after all.

"We're just enjoying a normal decadent Las Vegas Easter," Beth Hoos said as she took cards dealt by Binion's dealer Gilbert Carranza.

What was going on 24 floors above Beth Hoos and Carranza was unusual, though. Kennedy and his fellow UNLV hotel administration students had organized the sunrise Easter service for a racing ministry because they "needed a project to graduate," Kennedy explained.

He and his college colleagues needn't have worried. About 50 people turned out for the Easter service near the Binion's pool. Before the service, a few marveled at the Plaza sign they could see from the Binion's roof: "We Got Balls." They didn't know that was just a Vegas way of letting people know that the Plaza is the only downtown casino with bingo games.

ChampCar Ministries' Bob Pirtle figured all along that enough people would read about the sunrise service in the racing program and make a point of getting up early for it.

Pirtle was more worried about whether the race "would be commercially viable."

"For a lot of people, Easter is about getting together as a family," Pirtle said.

Some of those families, though not as many as the Rev. Timothy Clark Wehn would have liked, ended up Sunday at St. Joan of Arc, right next to where racers practiced turn seven on the race course during 10 a.m. Mass.

"We only had about a third of our usual attendance on Good Friday and Saturday night," the pastor said. "And we're not getting as many people today. People are just worried about traffic. As far as I'm concerned, we've got a great racetrack north of town (the Las Vegas Motor Speedway), and we should use that."

Often, as Wehn spoke Sunday, the sound of race cars was so loud that parishioners in back pews could see the priest's lips move but could not hear what he had to say.

"This is the holiest day of the year," parishioner Jim Colleran said. "They should have picked another Sunday for the race."

But parishioner Lilli Walling didn't mind the noise and watched the drivers practice before and after the race.

"I think it's cool," she said.

Anthony Ellis Jr., who sang at the sunrise service at Binion's, thought Easter 2007 in Las Vegas was worthy of praise, in more ways than one.

"We were in Las Vegas, of all places, singing, 'How Great Is Our God,'" he said. "That in itself is something to shout about."