After Sunday’s NASCAR Event At Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Track President Chris Powell Rides Off Into Sunset In His RV
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Report by LVSportsBiz.com with photos by J. Tyge O’Donnell
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — It was the final dance for Chris Powell, the 65-year-old North Carolina native who helmed his final NASCAR race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway Sunday.
Powell’s role of president of the vast NASCAR track complex and property north of the city of Las Vegas ends after 26 years of overseeing a sport facility that predates the new major teams, the new stadiums and arenas and all the new big event hype that now characterizes the Las Vegas market.
Powell began his post in December 1998 when the Speedway Motorsports, Inc. started running the Las Vegas track and his retirement is official March 31.
Powell has been a friendly ally of reporters and the media, maybe because he was once a newspaper man and sports reporter who also would work as a PR guy for R.J. Reynolds before overseeing a NASCAR track property in Las Vegas that would go on to host the massive Electric Daisy Concert music festival.
Back in his sports reporting days, Powell worked at the Rocky Mount Telegram, Salisbury Post, Durham Sun, Fayetteville Times and UPI from 1981-88. He covered ACC college football and basketball.
Powell’s LVMS tenure also included the additions of the Neon Garage, where fans hang out and the track can do sponsor activations, and The Strip at LVMS, where the drag racers of the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) zip down the pavement.
Powell’s final NASCAR race saw Josh Berry score his first NASCAR Cup Series race win with famed actor Morgan Freeman serving as the grand marshal at the Pennzoil 400.
Staring in April, Powell will be literally driving into the sunset, clearing the way for Patrick Lindsey to take over the NASCAR track reins in Las Vegas. Lindsey was the head of the local PGA Shriners Children’s Open golf event sponsored by the Tampa, Florida-based Shriners.
The soon-to-be-retired NASCAR track exec enjoys driving big RVs and there’s nothing he’d enjoy driving more than a massive land yacht that could be anchored at his own place. Powell hopes to build an RV park in his native North Carolina when his NASCAR and Las Vegas days are over.
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