By ALAN SNEL
LVSportsBiz.com
Photos by Daniel Clark, LVSportsBiz.com
If you own water misters and anything that offers shade, you might be getting a phone call from Las Vegas Motor Speedway. which is putting on a three-day NASCAR race extravaganza in the middle of September when triple-digit temperatures are not uncommon.
It’s the first time the sprawling speedway north of Las Vegas off Interstate 15 gets to host a second NASCAR race in one calendar year, though temperatures should be toasty for the Sept. 14-16 races.
“We know it’ll be warm,” Las Vegas Motor Speedway President Chris Powell said with a flair for the understatement. “We’ve secured every mister in the city.”
Powell was hanging out near pit row Monday with all types of folks from the speedway, the South Point hotel-casino and the Vegas Golden Knights for a PR promotion event to generate free publicity for the debut of the South Point 400 on Sept. 16 at high noon.
Powell said the speedway will have an announcement soon about misters and shade structures as part of a strategy to keep things cool during NASCAR weekend next month.
As far as Monday’s publicity event, you have to give credit to the PR staffs for both the speedway and the Golden Knights for not hyping it more than for what it was: a made-for-media event to gain free TV and sports media exposure for the South Point 400.
The promotion involved Golden Knights defenseman Deryk Engelland and VGK TV broadcaster analyst Shane Hnidy hanging out with NASCAR driver Kurt Busch, a Las Vegas native who won the Cup Series championship in 2004.
Engelland and Hnidy tutored Busch on the finer points of slap shots and skating at the Knights’ training center in Summerlin.
Busch only fell once — and naturally LVSportsBiz.com photographer Daniel Clark was there to capture the moment.
It’s the first year of South Point’s title sponsorship of the NASCAR race and Michael Gaughan’s hotel casino is going all out to promote the race and leverage the September weekend into sales and revenues.
South Point has 2,300 rooms and 70 percent of them will be occupied by race-related visitors that weekend, said Sally Gaughan, director of internet marketing at South Point.
For that NASCAR weekend, South Point is charging $419 for two nights and a race ticket, $599 for three nights plus ticket and $799 for four nights and a ticket, Sally Gaughan said.
Not only is South Point and Michael Gaughan known for their motorsports roots, they also know a thing or two about rodeos, bulls and horses. Which is why South Point is bringing out the famed former world champion bull, Bushwacker, to Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the Sunday Sept. 16 NASCAR race. No drivers will be riding Bushwacker.
Las Vegas Motor Speedway will be the fourth of the eight NASCAR tracks owned by Speedway Motorsports, Inc. to host two NASCAR events during a single year, joining Charlotte, Texas and Bristol.
In Las Vegas’ case, the March NASCAR weekend is a strong visitor destination event, while the September event will rely more on locals, Powell said.
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