Jimmie Johnson face of busy year at Las Vegas Motor Speedway

Only two months remain until the annual NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race fires up at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and this year promises to be the best ever for Southern Nevada racing.

The narrow-minded who dislike Jimmie Johnson -- Mr. Five-Time -- should prepare to see the speedway use his car more than ever before to promote NASCAR weekend, which is March 4 to 6.

Not only did Johnson win the Las Vegas Cup event last year for the fourth time since 2005, but the new sponsor of the 400-mile race is Kobalt Tools. Because Kobalt is owned by Johnson's primary sponsor, Lowe's, No. 48 images should be prevalent.

Sounds good to me. Nothing better than having a five-time reigning champion hype a race.

Las Vegas will have its biggest presence in American racing this year, and not just because Johnson will be our primary race's poster boy.

We will be in the news this month when the IndyCar Series finally makes it official that it will conclude its season here Oct. 16, when the fastest oval race cars in the country wrap up a three-day weekend at the speedway. The weekend will include the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series on Oct. 15.

A bonus will be inclusion of IndyCar's Firestone Indy Lights developmental series and the return to LVMS pit road of hometown hero Sam Schmidt. Schmidt, who won the speedway's IndyCar race in 1999 a few months before he was paralyzed by a crash in a Florida test session, will field three teams this year. As an owner, he has won four championships in the series, including last year.

Schmidt is one of the few racers you'll ever hear me call a hero. The Henderson resident warrants that from his work with the Sam Schmidt Paralysis Foundation that works to find a cure for paralysis by funding research, medical treatment, rehabilitation and technological advances. It would be fitting for the Lights race to be named in his honor.

The big October weekend also should mark the professional debuts in their hometown for former LVMS Bullring racers Justin Johnson, 25, and Dusty Davis, 18. They will make their NASCAR truck series debuts in March and April with Vision Aviation Racing.

Joining Johnson and Davis in the series will be Bishop Gorman High School graduate Brendan Gaughan, who has moved from the Nationwide Series to drive a truck as a teammate of Germain Racing's reigning series champion Todd Bodine. That could put three Southern Nevadans in the show.

Let's hope Kyle Busch Motorsports will find funding to field at least one truck in the series to put a Sin City quartet in the Las Vegas race.

Factoring Cup veterans Kurt and Kyle Busch into the mix would put five 702 homeboys in NASCAR's national series.

Including two NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series events, the speedway easily can claim to have the most ambitious schedule of any racing facility in the world.

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 lvrj.com/motorsports throughout the week for Wolf's Heavy Pedal blog and current motorsports news.