NASCAR fans enjoy Las Vegas Motor Speedway's new opera box-style loge seats.

LV Motor Speedway Keeping Up With Sports Joneses By Unveiling New Premium Seating Areas

By ALAN SNEL

LVSportsBiz.com

 

It doesn’t get any more lavish than this at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

 

NASCAR fans Charlie Davis, Chris Wilson and Jason Davis were lounging on chairs in their own loge seating area outside with an ideal sight line of the finish line at the Speedway early Friday afternoon. They dined on tortilla chips with salsa and were washing it down with Bud Lights.

 

Really, does it get any better than this at a NASCAR track?

 

“It’s amazing,” said Davis, a Fresno, California resident who came for a tripleheader race weekend Friday, Satuday and Sunday when NASCAR’s Big Boys race in the Pennzoil 400.

 

This new upscale seating area was unveiled this week, with two major factors driving this multi-million-dollar capital improvement at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Kevin Camper, VP for LVMS sales and marketing, hangs out in one of the loge seating areas.

 

First, the Speedway, located on a sprawling site 20 miles from the heart of the Las Vegas Strip, was awarded a second NASCAR tripleheader weekend event in September.

 

And second, with palatial, amenity-packed T-Mobile Arena opening nearly two years ago and the new Raiders stadium and new Las Vegas 51s ball park coming on line in Las Vegas during the next two years, Las Vegas Motor Speedway had to up its game in the premium seating category.

 

LVSportsBiz.com caught up with Las Vegas Motor Speedway Sales & Marketing VP Kevin Camper to check out two new loge areas that offer 88 upscale experience seats and three remodeled clubs offering seating for 1,080 NASCAR fans.

 

 

Las Vegas Motor Speedway ripped out grandstand seats to carve out space for the “Race Control” and “Vegas” loge areas, which consist of small, outdoor opera box-style sections of four, six and eight seats. The loges are segregated from neighboring grandstand seats and loge fans also have food, wine and beer covered under the two tripleheader events — or six days of racing. They can also grab meals and drinks in an upscale area under the former grandstand area.

 

A single loge seat for this six-day, two-tripleheader fan experience is $1,799 — or about $300 per day. All 88 loge seats have been sold out for this weekend and the Speedway is looking to add more loge space to double the 88 count, Camper said.

 

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Davis, the NASCAR fan hanging out with two pals in one of the loge areas, quipped, “This is better than a suite.”

 

Then, there are three remodeled clubs, which have indoor food stations along with beer and wine in the club while also supplying reserved outdoor seats with a prime view of the track.

Remodeled clubs offer fans an indoor place to lounge, eat and drink while also providing a reserved outdoor seat.

 

The biggest club can hold about 500 race fans, while the other two — which includes a club used by Caesars Entertainment — each holds about 300 fans, Camper said Friday.

 

A single club ticket costs $899 for this three-day weekend, and $1,499 for both this weekend and the tripleheader race event set for Sept. 13-16. The ticket includes access to the club, a reserved outdoor seat and free food, beer and drink as part of the deal.

Kevin Camper, head of Speedway sales and marketing, chats with a fan in one of the remodeled clubs.

 

And there’s even a fourth club that is open to general race fans where the Speedway is trying to sell the title sponsorships to the club’s bars.

 

When the Speedway is not hosting races, sales staffers will try and lease the clubs for corporate gatherings.

 

Camper said the new premium fan experience areas in the loges and clubs were needed to keep pace with the upscale fan amenities at T-Mobile Arena, which has two large clubs and several opera box-style premium seating options.

 

The Speedway’s new upscale premium seating areas augment its bread-and-butter grandstand seats, plus 5,500 camping spots. In all, with fixed seating providing space for 80,000 fans and another 12,000 fans or so in the 5,500 camping spots, the Speedway could be pushing six-figure attendance for Sunday’s Pennzoil 400.

 

The Speedway also has 100 suites.

 

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Las Vegas Motor Speedway is hip to the eSports craze that is sweeping Las Vegas and points around the globe, so they have a race simulation and five-lap game contest up and running courtesy of Dream Racing in the Neon Garage.

Fans of all ages enjoyed the race simulation machines.

 

More than several hundred race fans took a seat in the simulator cage and raced, video-game-style Friday.

 

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Follow LVSportsBiz.com on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Contact LVSportsBiz.com founder/writer Alan Snel at asnel@LVSportsBiz.com

 

Alan Snel

Alan Snel brings decades of sports-business reporting experience to LVSportsBiz.com. Snel covered the business side of sports for the South Florida (Fort Lauderdale) Sun-Sentinel, the Tampa Tribune and Las Vegas Review-Journal. As a city hall beat reporter, Snel also covered stadium deals in Denver and Seattle. In 2000, Snel launched a sport-business website for FoxSports.com called FoxSportsBiz.com. After reporting sports-business for the RJ, Snel wrote hard-hitting stories on the Raiders stadium for the Desert Companion magazine in Las Vegas and The Nevada Independent. Snel is also one of the top bicycle advocates in the country.