OWRS plans Champ Car race in Las Vegas

Open Wheel Racing Series, the company awaiting clearance to acquire the Champ Car World Series, intends to found a fixture in Las Vegas, NV, either on the 1.5-mile Las Vegas Motor Speedway oval, or on a new street circuit in association with an unidentified casino. The event would replace the US west coast race at California Speedway, near Fontana, which OWRS would drop from the schedule along with the Miami street race [Dec 19]

Dec 19, 2003, 11:13 PM

The Miami event has been one of the causes of CART's recent heavy operating losses, while CART and ISC's Cal Speedway are expected shortly to be engaged in litigation over the pre-paid sanction fee for the 2003 event, which was cancelled due to the wildfires in the area.

OWRS co-founder Paul Gentilozzi said: "We're committed to racing in Las Vegas. In the next two weeks, I'll be back in Las Vegas to make some final decisions about where we're going to race. We think it's a city that's valuable to us and can provide huge marketing opportunities as we go forward. With every safe assumption, we're going to be there.

"The discussion is: Do we go to Las Vegas Motor Speedway, which has had some difficulty promoting open-wheel racing? We're convinced that, with a joint effort, we can change that, [but] we're also investigating doing an event in conjunction with a major casino on a facility adjacent to the Strip."