Hey race fans!
I can not believe that the regular season at the Bullring is coming to an end this weekend! Where did the season go? It seems like just yesterday, we came back from our summer break. This season has definitely been a great one!
This weekend, we will crown our 2009 Bullring Champions. They will receive their official trophies at the banquet that will be at Sam's Town Live! on October 24th. But there are still some tight points battles that can be changed in an instant with this weekend's race results.
Congratulations to Kaylee Barker who has clinched the 2009 title and is the youngest girl to win a Bando Bandit Championship! Way to go!
Come and enjoy our Championship Night. Enjoy the door-to-door action that will happen this Saturday - there will be no hanging back. This is it - now or never to win a championship for some drivers that are so close to the elusive titles for their divisions. Gates open at 5 p.m. with qualifying, and opening ceremonies will be at 7 p.m.
Don't forget we have the Speed Spectacular on Oct. 31st and the Open Comp Race Weekend on Nov. 6th and 7th still to run at the Bullring this year. And then we move to the Dirt Track for the Duel in the Desert, Nov. 12th-14th where the winner can win $7,777.77!
Have to run...have a great week! And as always - see ya at the races!
This is a big week here at Las Vegas Motor Speedway as the stars of the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series make their annual visit to the Nevada desert.
But there is much more to this event than just 146 laps of truck racing.
The week is getting started on Thursday when three of the drivers participate in a pre-event press conference at the new Hard Rock Café on the Las Vegas Strip. Mike Skinner, who won here last year, Todd Bodine and former Supercross world champion Ricky Carmichael will be helping promote the event for the speedway. And if you haven't visited the new Hard Rock, you should check it out. It's three stories tall, has two big bars, indoor and outdoor dining and a virtual memorabilia wall that is simply amazing.
On Friday, the team haulers will enter at noon and the teams will begin preparations for Saturday night's race. But Friday night, many of the top drivers in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series will be at the Stratosphere Hotel and Casino signing autographs. This autograph session is free to the public and the line will open at 7 p.m. David Starr, Terry Cook, Stacy Compton and many more will be on hand to greet fans and sign autographs.
The serious business for the teams starts on Saturday morning. The teams will get to work at 7 a.m. for this one-day show, where the teams will practice, qualify and race all in the same day. At noon, spectator gates will open and so does the Neon Garage.
Thanks to V Theater, the Neon Garage, will be loaded with entertainment. Fab Four, one of the top Beatles tribute bands, will headline the Neon Garage performance schedule. The Gregory Popovich Pet Theater and several other top Vegas acts will perform throughout the day as well. Gerry McCambridge from The Mentalist will also be on hand.
When you're not checking out the entertainment on the center stage, make sure to go to the team garage bays and get your souvenirs signed by your favorite drivers while their crews are hard at work preparing the trucks.
We will also have a racing exhibition by 600 Racing on the quarter-mile oval in the tri-oval of the superspeedway. Legends Cars, Thunder Roadsters and Bandoleros will be part of the 600 Racing card.
At 3:30 p.m., qualifying for the Las Vegas 350 gets under way, and the drivers' meeting will follow at 5 p.m.
At 6 p.m., when dusk begins to form another perfect Nevada evening, we will begin the introductions for the Las Vegas 350. If you've been to this race before, you know the driver intros are a little unique here. The drivers will walk through the stands and greet the fans as they're introduced.
Once the driver intros are completed, please prepare for a stirring rendition of the national anthem. Vocal Soup, a group made up of legendary performers, will sing The Star Spangled Banner. Veteran Vegas headliner Clint Holmes, former Miss California, blonde bombshell Susan Anton and ex-Foreigner frontman Domenick Allen are part of this amazing quartet.
From there, sit back, relax and watch the greatest truck racers in the world compete for the next two hours to take home the Las Vegas 350 trophy. Then return to the Neon Garage to see the jubilation of Victory Lane.
It's going to be a great week, so make sure not to miss a minute of it.
Sweltering heat and blistering pavement surround the 1500 acres of Las Vegas Motor Speedway (LVMS.) However, inside the gates one gets the chance to see one of ten tracks, state-of-the-art garages, luxury suites fit for the casino elite, and enough energy and excitement to last a lifetime.
I must start by saying that I have never been a big NASCAR guy or follower of races on tracks like LVMS but when you hear that the sport is larger than soccer there's got to be something to it. Sure you race around at 90mph+ on the smaller tracks and over 180mph+ on the superspeedway at such a close proximity that you could actually shake hands with the other drivers but is there more to it? Is it just the speed, adrenaline, and rowdy fans? Wow, carried away already-why don't we start from the beginning?
A group of us (me, Emma, Julia, and Adam) ventured to Las Vegas from Southern Oregon to film a FiestaMovement Mission video. The FiestaMovement is a project through Ford in which 100 ‘agents' embark around the country driving the Ford Fiesta. Just one thing-the Ford Fiesta isn't released in the US yet. These 100 Germany-built cars are now infiltrating the US via all the social networking sites (YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, FaceBook, 12Seconds, Blogs, etc.) Each month, we film one mission based on a theme to post onto YouTube. This is all to promote the US release for the 2011 model. To see more about it and to check out our profile (including pictures and videos from the LVMS) go to: http://fiestamovement.com/agent16
I must say if you haven't been to LVMS and you live nearby...what are you waiting for? We were treated to a tour of the facility from Mysti Den Hoed, Administrative Assistant of Racing Operations. Her passion for not only the track itself, but for the sport, is a small sampling of how devoted racing fans are. She took us onto the track in a van and calmly said, "there's going to be a small bump." We hit what seemed like a 50-degree banking (really, only 24) and thought we were going to flip over in this mini-van. (Full disclosure...it was a Chevy van...sorry Ford.) I would post what speed we traveled but not sure what the legal limits are let's just say that Mysti went the fastest she could safely go with 4 passengers. During the tour, which is available to everyone, we saw the luxury suites, the garage, and several other tracks at LVMS.
Mysti turned us loose after the very informative tour. Our heads were about to explode with more NASCAR and track facts that could be fit in our brains. We piled into the Fiesta for some track adventures of our own. Naturally, we headed back to the superspeedway to see how the Fiesta could handle. After taking to the superspeedway with Sebastien (an instructor for the Mario Andretti Racing School) we asked if he had any advice after speeding comfortably around the track at 100mph. His advice, "Don't go that fast." The Fiesta seemed very tuned into the track as I drove it 90mph+ around and around again. Felt much like the drive back to Oregon on a flat highway (minus the CHP's involvement...but that's another story.) Handling was very nice and I probably would have gone a bit faster if it wasn't for seeing the ambulance standing by just waiting to jump into action. After 30 minutes of filming at the superspeedway, which would have been a once-in-a-lifetime experience on its own, we moved over to the Bullring track. (Called the Bull Pen all day by Emma and Julia...they thought we were at a baseball game!)
The Bullring offered even more challenges as it was much shorter with tighter turns. The Fiesta handled great and I'm sure that a pro driver could have taken it much faster. We spent 45 minutes taking turns on the track and amusing the gallery up in the press box. They had to come down to see what we were doing when I was racing Adam. I was in the Fiesta and he was on foot. I won. He's pretty out of shape! To give you an idea of the track, at 50mph it felt like we were going to die! Later that night we watched drivers take modified cars and trucks hitting speeds of 100mph including a young man, age 14, driving the #3 car. Amazing! (That's another blog though.) We were alone on the track and could swerve and follow whatever line we wanted-these drivers could pick the bugs from the car windshields ahead and behind.
Exhausted from a full day of filming the evening was drawing near the end. The checkered flag was about to wave on our night and though we spent most of the day at LVMS driving the Fiesta on the superspeedway and the Bullring, the real discovery was a new sense of appreciation for the crazy talent that it takes to be involved in this sport. We didn't see the rumored drunk and rowdy car fanatics, but passionate diehards who love what Las Vegas MotorSpeedway has to offer.
(If you would like to contact Brad you can find him on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/followthefiesta)