2011 puzzle starts coming together

The Sprint Cup schedule will undergo some major changes in 2011.

The first piece of the puzzle was put into place this week when International Speedway Corp. announced it formally petitioned NASCAR to give Kansas Speedway, an ISC-owned track, a second Cup race as early as 2011. The goal is to boost traffic to a new casino to be built overlooking the track.

The petition surely will be approved because NASCAR is owned by the France family, which controls stock in ISC. The chances of it happening are enhanced by series sponsor Sprint being headquartered in nearby Overland Park, Kan.

The mystery is which track will lose a race to accommodate Kansas, but a good bet is it will come from Fontana, Calif., where ISC never has come close to filling seats for either of its annual races at California Speedway.

Drama also surrounds whether Speedway Motorsports Inc. will request and receive NASCAR's permission to move one of its Cup races from Loudon, N.H., and/or Hampton, Ga. Each track has two annual dates.

SMI founder and chairman Bruton Smith wants to put a first Cup race at his Kentucky Speedway and a second at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

A week ago, we told you the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, which is funded by a hotel room tax, is hot on the trail of enticing Smith to add a September Cup date at Las Vegas.

Major sponsors of the series would love to spend another weekend in Las Vegas, where clients and supporters could be wined and dined.

Nightlife isn't too hot in Loudon or Hampton -- the latter 30 miles south of Atlanta.

It might look like a no-brainer for Smith to dump a race in New Hampshire or Georgia for another at Las Vegas, where more tickets and corporate hospitality would be sold. Not to mention the willingness of LVCVA to pay SMI up to $8 million over four or five years for the right to host another Cup weekend.

I've never known Smith to only focus on the immediate bottom line. Since buying LVMS late in 1998, he has led the reconstruction of nearly every major aspect of the facility. He transformed it from a nice but not opulent speed plant to one of the finest in the world.

Highway access to the Loudon track, I've been told, is sorely lacking. The Kentucky track needs a major overhaul to become Cup-worthy.

Las Vegas is turnkey, well run and designed to host Cup races.

Ideally -- for Las Vegas and NASCAR -- the Chase for the Championship would start here and end in December with NASCAR's Sprint Cup Champion's Week, which never would have arrived here last year without Smith's urging and the LVCVA's funding.

Smith would be feted in Southern Nevada as a hero for adding a Cup date that would generate $160 million in economic impact. But he also must be concerned with the impact on another community if it lost a race.

Smith's first priority should be improving the value of his corporation's stock, and all signs point toward achieving that goal by sending another race to Las Vegas where more money can be made.

It's not common for him to be tight-lipped. He usually takes my calls, but hasn't for the past two weeks.

It could be because he has a lot to say.

Jeff Wolf's motor sports column is published Friday in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. He can be reached at jwolf@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0247. Visit Wolf's motor sports blog at lvrj.com/blogs/heavypedal/ throughout the week.