{"id":30192,"date":"2019-10-31T13:00:20","date_gmt":"2019-10-31T17:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dodgegarage.com\/news-api\/?p=30192"},"modified":"2024-03-25T11:23:56","modified_gmt":"2024-03-25T15:23:56","slug":"desert-dragway-an-oasis-of-fast-cars-and-burning-rubber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/racing\/2019\/10\/desert-dragway-an-oasis-of-fast-cars-and-burning-rubber.html","title":{"rendered":"Desert Dragway \u2013 An Oasis of Fast Cars and Burning Rubber"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Like a mirage in the barren desert,\nthe towering grandstands that overlook the high bank turns at Las Vegas Motor\nSpeedway emerged out of the early morning hazy horizon. Travelling northbound, Interstate 15 – the main artery that flows travelers through the state of\nNevada – starts to clot up through the Las\nVegas city limits, but it begins to clear. The multi-purpose racing facility comes\ninto view as we stare out the windshield of our rental Dodge Durango and into the\ndistance. This town in the desert is known for its gambling, casinos,\nshows, never-ending growth and, of course, Elvis. But the speedway, just north\nof all the bright lights and sidewalk hustlers preying on countless tourists\nalong Las Vegas Boulevard, is really where the action is. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Las Vegas Motor Speedway (LVMS)\nbegan life not as a totally new venture to bring a racing facility to the town,\nbut as a much improved one. Back in the day, Las Vegas Raceway Park was the place to\nget your need for speed. It consisted of a drag strip, 3\/8-mile paved oval and\nroad course. The decision was made over two decades ago to expand the facility and\nwas spearheaded by Richie Clyne with assistance from then Sahara owner Bill\nBennett and Imperial Palace owner Ralph Engelstad. The property in and around\nthe old Las Vegas Raceway Park made the location ideal for building a NASCAR\nsuperspeedway and a major league drag racing track. There were also plans to add a half-mile clay\noval track at LVMS during the initial design phase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ground was broken on the new facility in 1996, but it was\njust for the superspeedway. However, even though concrete had been poured for\nthe grandstands and the ground had been leveled for the drag strip around the\nsame time, it was never finished. Without the guarantee of an NHRA national\nevent, the previous owners never completed construction of the quarter-mile\ntrack. Once Speedway Motorsports purchased the facility in late 1998, it became\na priority to secure an NHRA event and complete construction on the drag strip.\nThe first NASCAR Cup Series race was held at LVMS in March of 1998, while the\nfirst NHRA event was in April of 2000. Now, the LVMS with its 72,000 permanent seats for the speedway and 22,000\npermanent seats for the dragstrip, is around 1,000 acres in total between the\ntwo race tracks. It plays host to a dozen distinct racing venues throughout the\nyear, including IndyCar, Red Bull Air Race and the SRO GT Blancpain World\nChallenge for sports cars. LVMS is also home for the Electric Daisy Carnival, which\nis the largest dance music festival in North America. More than 150,000 people\ncome in per day for this three-day event. Since the LVMS sits within Clark\nCounty and not the city limits of Las Vegas, the area has seen extreme growth\nover the past two decades on facilities that will benefit the region. Back in\n2014, The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway also provided the photoshoot backdrop\nfor the earth-shattering 2015 Dodge Challenger SRT\u00ae<\/sup> Hellcat before the car was even\nannounced to the public. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Strip at Las\nVegas Motor Speedway has also hosted two NHRA National events a year for over a\ndecade. The spring race, usually held in April, just saw a major change in\nvenue with the introduction of four-wide racing in 2018. Las Vegas Motor\nSpeedway\u2019s sister track, zMAX Dragway in Charlotte, also runs the four-wide\nformat at its spring event and it\u2019s become a sensory overload for both the fans\nin the stands and the racers competing. What some folks don\u2019t know is Speedway\nMotors founder and executive chairman Bruton Smith had initially wanted to\nmake Las Vegas four lanes when it was built in 2000, but NHRA wasn\u2019t quite\nready for four-lane drag racing at the time. So when the track was built, the\ninfrastructure was already there to make it four lanes. The right side scoreboard\nwas off-set from the track and the land was graded back then. So it didn\u2019t take\nas much work to expand from two to four lanes. The biggest challenge was simply\nhaving to close the busiest drag strip in the country for a few months to\ncomplete the construction. Between the weekly and regional racing programs, as\nwell the corporate events, the drag strip is used about 40 weekends per year.\nSo LVMS had to cancel some events and delay others to accommodate construction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The second yearly\nNHRA national event held at LVMS will be the Dodge NHRA Vegas Nationals this\nweekend. It\u2019s the second-to-last race of the year and an important one as the\nracers in the Pro classes are chasing valuable points to claim a world\nchampionship. Since this event is part of NHRA\u2019s Countdown to the Championship,\nthe track will go back to the traditional two-wide format as every round of\nqualifying and eliminations is hyper-critical and has a points value that gets\ntallied up at the end of the race. Here, our Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) drivers\nwill fire up their Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Funny Cars and thunder down the strip,\nwhile Leah Pritchett will blaze the surface\nof the track with her 11,000-horsepower supercharged HEMI\u00ae<\/sup> engine-powered Dodge\/\/Mopar\u00ae<\/sub> Top Fuel Dragster. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The stakes are high and unknown for the drivers competing this weekend, but the future for LVMS looks bright and clear. This oasis of speed and high performance in the middle of the desert is a welcome relief for speed junkies and high-octane addicts looking to get their fix of nitro, burning rubber and going fast. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Check out these\ncool pics of The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway!<\/p>\n\n\n\n