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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
I was headed to the Las Vegas Grand Prix Media Center at Tuscany Casino on my bicycle, figuring my two-wheeler would be a nice way to negotiate the car traffic, closed roads and controlled chaos at this inaugural Formula One race event in the heart of the Strip corridor.
I approached a friendly security guard wearing a pink reflector vest at the track’s fence opening at Koval Lane and Harmon Avenue and asked him what was the best way to get through the closed Koval Lane to reach Flamingo Road and the media center at Tuscany.
“Take that first left, and make another left and follow the road,” the short, burly security guy advised me.
That’s exactly what I did.
Unfortunately, the next thing I know I’m bicycling on the 3.8-mile F1 track that has turned the famed Las Vegas Strip corridor into a linear Super Bowl of car racing, a night-time spectacle set for Saturday at 10 PM.
On the way over to the media center, I stopped to chat with a F1 race marshal, a veteran of Formula One races in Europe who was among a group of marshals practicing moving the small, zippy race cars off the track in a parking lot behind the Mandalay Bay hotel-casino.
The beefy dude with a puffy beard had a blunt response to F1 champion Max Versteppen’s comments about F1’s Las Vegas race being all about a show.
“Someone from Red Bull (Versteppen’s racing team) should have told him to shut the fuck up and explain to him that we are in the motorsports entertainment industry,” the race marshal told me.
Indeed, Colorado-based Liberty Media, which owns Formula One, wants to grow the sport in the lucrative United States market and has planted a marketing flag in the ground with a lavish 300,000-square-foot paddock building that is the nerve center for the Las Vegas Grand Prix at Koval/Harmon.
LVSportsBiz.com has an exclusive look at the facility here during our bicycle ride to the media center.
Tonight is the opening ceremony to kick off this high-powered race event that Southern Nevada political and tourism leaders say will be an economic boon for metro Las Vegas.
The economic impact numbers for the Las Vegas Grand Prix have grown through the year — in apparent direct proportion to the dislike of the race by locals who are upset over a sports promoter taking over the iconic Strip and turning the world-famous public road into a private race venue that has disrupted life for thousands of Las Vegans.
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F1 opened its Las Vegas facility to the world with over-the-top, razzle-dazzle opening ceremony in front of thousands of fans.
It was as if you were inside a high-volt slot machine, with technocolor drone shows and fireworks dazzling the Wednesday night crowd.
There was little doubt that it was visually intoxicating, a type of surreal show and pageantry that blows away the non-race entertainment you see in the motorsports industry.
Then again, it’s Las Vegas. Everything is Knight Time or Show Time.
The 300,000-square-foot paddock is part of F1’s $500 million gamble on and/or investment in Las Vegas and the U.S. market.
The “pit building” is an impressive structure, four levels of high-end social space that rivals the corporate meeting and social gathering places in the Raiders’ Allegiant Stadium. Undoubtedly, the two top-shelf sports venues — the Raiders stadium and F1’s paddock building — will compete against each other for company parties and event gatherings.
LVSportsBiz.com discussed the F1 race in Las Vegas in this podcast with City Cast Las Vegas.