Las Vegas drawn into Kentucky fray

Southern Nevada government entities drew kudos from Bruton Smith on Friday during a highly spirited news conference at Loudon, N.H., to address last Saturday’s traffic and parking nightmares at his Kentucky Speedway.

Smith, founder and chairman of Speedway Motorsports, operates eight tracks, including Las Vegas, that hold NASCAR Sprint Cup races. He implied he would love to receive government and political support at Kentucky like he has gotten in Las Vegas.

“When I asked Las Vegas for something they responded,” he said at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, one of his tracks that hosts NASCAR this weekend.

“We didn’t get a Las Vegas response (at Kentucky).”

He was asked if he’d consider moving the Cup race from Kentucky if his scheduled meeting next week with the Kentucky governor doesn’t produce funded road improvements.

“Las Vegas, baby,” he said, implying the race could be moved to Las Vegas.

But that won’t happen. Smith said SMI has invested $100 million in the Kentucky track since buying it three years ago and for that reason alone he won’t be moving the Cup race.

Smith “sincerely apologized” to those unable to get into Kentucky on Saturday for its inaugural Cup race and promised that any problems with parking would be fixed before next year’s Cup race.

But beyond that, Smith did little to throw water on the burning embers. Instead, he pumped fuel on several hot topics.

1. He insisted Kentucky had the largest paid crowd this year in the Cup series and it would be the largest of the season.

He would not provide statistics to back that up. No one, other than perhaps Smith, believes the Kentucky crowd was bigger than the one for the Daytona 500 or races at Las Vegas, Charlotte and Bristol speedways.

Making a statement like that damages Smith’s credibility.

2. He implied Michigan International Speedway president Roger Curtis was a jackass and that “you can’t fix stupid” because Curtis used a news release Monday to criticize how Kentucky mishandled parking and angered fans.

Smith said tracks shouldn’t criticize other tracks.

Smith was challenged by a reporter about why Curtis was wrong for doing that, but it is OK for Smith to refer to the Cup track in Homestead, Fla., as being in “North Cuba.”

It was embarrassing that Smith tried to defend his ethnically bigoted “North Cuba” references.

3. When asked why he didn’t offer those with tickets a cash refund when they were turned away from the track, he simply replied, “We don’t want to.”

4. In touting the Kentucky attendance, he exaggerated that you couldn’t see an empty seat. That was wrong, very wrong.

While it was a boost to NASCAR that more than 120,000 folks attended -- or tried to attend -- the Kentucky race, mismanagement of the event and, worse yet, the ongoing war of words is causing irreparable harm to the sport.

Parking can be fixed.

Egotistical battles and one-upmanship are making the sport a laughingstock.