Las Vegas to host race

The two-day event will pair Champ Cars with the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, with both series racing on the Saturday night.

"The addition of a Champ Car World Series event is great news not only for Las Vegas Motor Speedway but also for Las Vegas as a whole," said LVMS general manager Chris Powell. "The Champ Car World Series offers some of the fastest and most technologically advanced race cars in the world and the fans attending the Las Vegas 350 NASCAR Craftsman Truck race now will be treated to an additional adrenaline rush. We're excited to offer such a great night of racing to the fans of Las Vegas as well as to those who are drawn from outside the community."

The LVMS tri-oval will be the first superspeedway race for Champ Car since last season's visit to EuroSpeedway Lausitz in Germany.

"We have found it very important to develop a partnership with a superspeedway oval, and we found that in Speedway Motorsports and the Las Vegas Motor Speedway," said OWRS principal Kevin Kalkhoven. "We're pleased to share the weekend with the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. The addition of this event completes the ultimate Champ Car competition package, which is racing on superspeedways, on ovals, temporary street circuits and permanent road courses, making it the most unique and definitely the most challenging driving experience and driving championship anywhere.

Kalkhoven said the agreement is for one year only: "But depending on how things go, we can happily extend this. It's very exciting for us. We love having a superspeedway event on the calendar. We'll see how it goes."

The Las Vegas announcement accounts for one of two remaining open dates on the 2004 Champ Car calendar. "I would hope, we get this other TBA resolved in the next two weeks," said OWRS principal Paul Gentilozzi.