Vegas open-wheel racing fraught with twists, turns

Two decades before high rollers could buy Ferraris at the Wynn, the most exotic cars in the world were zipping around a temporary circuit on a vacant lot adjacent to Caesars Palace.

The international Formula One series held races there in 1981 and 1982 and was followed the next two years by CART (now known as Champ Car World Series).

It was a four-year, high-speed run just off the Strip that drew almost 40,000 spectators each time.

Now, the speedsters are back -- for today's inaugural Champ Car Vegas Grand Prix.

Today's race is the first on a 2.44-mile, 12-turn circuit that includes parts of downtown, a sprint past the Fremont Street Experience and along Grand Central Parkway.

The three-day event, which included two days of qualifying, has inconvenienced some locals and tourists.

But the weekend has been a delight to racing fans, specifically those who prefer open-wheel racing's technology and speed to that found in NASCAR's more rigid stock car racing.

Event owners Dale Jensen and Bradley Yonover are thought to have invested more than $15 million in the race.

But crowds were sparse Friday and Saturday for qualifying, and Southern Nevada does not boast a successful tradition of hosting Indy-style racing.

Only 13 major open-wheel events have been in Southern Nevada since the first in 1954, and the longest run lasted only five consecutive years.

Long before Alan Jones won the first Formula One race and Michele Alboreto the next in 1981 and 1982, Phoenix native Jimmy Bryan captured a AAA National Championship race in 1954 on the dirt of Las Vegas Park, originally a horse racing track on Paradise Road that is now the site of the Hilton.

Bryan finished second that year in the Indianapolis 500. He won the 500 in 1958 but died two years later at age 34 in an Indy car crash at Langhorne Speedway in Pennsylvania.

This weekend marks the first time downtown has been used for racing since it was the starting point for the SCORE Mint 400 desert race in the late 1960s, as racers left to head northeast to a starting line near what is now Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

After Formula One left the road course in Watkins Glen in New York following the 1980 season, it moved to Las Vegas as the season finale the next year.

Sports reporters covering the event in 1981 and 1982 remember full grandstands. Promoters claimed attendance to be up to 38,000 for each of the October races.

But the cost of hosting an F1 race, which drew an international crowd, was far from profitable for Caesars.

The following two years, the more affordable CART series used the parking-lot circuit. While attendance again was strong, the event struggled to gain sponsorship support from other casinos.

The racing also wasn't stellar.

"It was an abbreviated road course. More like a squared-off oval," said Bobby Rahal, who finished ninth in 1983 and seventh the next year.

The site of the track now is buried under Caesars' Forum Shops.

A 12-year drought for open-wheel fans ended in 1996 when the new Indy Racing League IndyCar Series was created and held yearly races at LVMS until 2000.

Another four years went by until Champ Car paid to join the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series for a tandem race night at the speedway in 2004. Sebastien Bourdais won the event and repeated as champion the next year before the series sought a Vegas street race.

The Vegas Grand Prix is under contract with the city for five years.

Rahal, the 1986 Indy 500 winner, is competing this weekend in the Historic Grand Prix on the downtown circuit and will watch his 18-year-old son, Graham, debut in the Champ Car race.

Rahal said the Caesars course was "challenging but featureless," a sentiment seconded by former driver Chris Kneifel.

"There were a lot of left turns. You couldn't get lost," said Kneifel, who finished eighth in the 1983 CART race. "It was a fun racetrack, but it wasn't a track that had a memorable turn, which gives a track a uniqueness."

As the circuit manager for the Vegas Grand Prix and its course creator, Kneifel was intent on building a track with character. Several drivers Friday and Saturday lauded his effort.

MAJOR OPEN-WHEEL RACING IN SOUTHERN NEVADA