LVMS says construction at track will be done

LAS VEGAS -- Five weeks away from NASCAR's UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 race weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the track's infield is a dusty beehive of activity related to both the final session of Jackson Hewitt Preseason Thunder and a major rebuild of the facility's garage area.

LVMS's "Neon Garage," which when completed will be unique to motorsports in this country, is currently a dustbowl, with uncompleted items too extensive to attempt to list, including paving, buildings, "finish work" and the new Victory Lane.

But according to track president Chris Powell and track spokesman Jeff Motley, the project will be completed in time for the annual race weekend's opening on March 7.

"We're not worried about the thing being done," Powell said. "Most of the stuff that has to be done now is cosmetic. All the wiring is done, the air conditioning. A garage is a lot easier to build than a home, because there's a lot less fine-tuning that you see, at the end. So we're in good shape."

No pavement has been laid within the four-sided garage's central "courtyard" and large expanses of pavement outside the perimeter of the garage need to be done. Within the fan zone inside the garage, two concession stands consist only of incomplete walls and work on a sports bar has just begun.

In addition, the expansive and multi-faceted media facility that fronts the garage complex in the center of the relocated pit road has very little finished inside it, and extensive "finish" work needs to be done to some of the fan observation decks atop the garages themselves, including some walls, roofs and railings.

However, two shifts of workers continue to toil about 12 hours a day, including paving crews that completed large sections of asphalt Monday and Tuesday. Motley said they had been working seven days a week and Powell said they had the capacity of "doing around-the-clock work, a 24-hour day," until race weekend arrives, if needed.

A problem getting structural steel put a five-week delay on the project, Powell said.

So rather than having a dry run during this test for the garage complex, which exits to the Turn 1 side of the start/finish line and enters from the Turn 4 end of pit road, and has fan viewing areas on the ground level behind each garage and from overhead walkways at either end of the garage stalls via glass panels.

The facility will get christened for real when Cup cars sign into the facility at the end of the week prior to the March 11 event, the third of the Nextel Cup season.

It's a stark contrast to what Daytona International Speedway experienced prior to Speedweeks 2005, when it debuted its Nextel Fan Zone, which has some similar features to Las Vegas, during preseason testing in January. Powell said having the new garage open during testing was his original plan, but that he wasn't overly concerned.

"That was the original idea, if we could have had it done and it was what we had hoped to do, last summer [when the project began]," Powell said. "The best-case scenario would have been to have everything done, but the main thing was that the speedway itself was done for the Truck race back in September.

"There's no concern whatsoever that the fan amenities within the strucure won't be done."

Powell said he had no idea what the biggest aspect of the project was that needed to be completed, but that he had a great fix on its overview.

"I don't know [because] I'm not that intimate with the whole process of construction," Powell said. "What I'm intimate with is the experts saying that we're in good shape and don't worry about it. We get favorable weather here. If we were somewhere where you might get a 6-inch snowfall, and sit and not work for a week, we might have some problems."

This week, 56 Nextel Cup teams operated for two days of testing in a new garage that was constructed last summer as part of the infield remake.

It will be used by the Busch Series in March and the Craftsman Truck Series later this year. Three of the four original garage structures were razed for the Neon Garage, with one of the original "Busch garage" buildings retained to be used by the Andretti/Gordon Racing School and the Richard Petty Driving Experience.

NASCAR is comfortable with the progress of the project -- at least the part that most directly affects operation of the event's competition -- and doesn't feel that a lack of a dry run will affect anything, despite the format of the garage being different than any other facility the Nextel Cup Series visits.

"Obviously, they've got a considerable amount of work to do," Nextel Cup Series director John Darby said. "But they're in a better time of the year to really turn the wick up. As the weather gets nicer, you can really get a lot more accomplished in a short period of time.

"The main structure of the garage is pretty much complete. The upstairs, I'm not fully versed on what's going to be up above, but that's mostly for the fan zone, fan walk and stuff like that, and I think that will come together for them real quick."

Darby and several of his key officials toured the facility near the end of Monday afternoon.

Powell said NASCAR signed off on the garage's original design, including its traffic patterns, and that the speedway had worked closely with NASCAR every step of the project.

"We've worked very closely with David Hoots [NASCAR director of events], Robin Pemberton [NASCAR vice president for competition] and John Darby, not just on the media center but on the whole thing -- how the garage is laid out, the tech inspection bays and everything," Powell said. "The flow of how the cars will enter and leave the garage was determined by NASCAR, not by our people."

It's the fan access aspect of the garage that makes it what Powell calls "absolutely unique" in motorsports.

"Not only can the fans get up to the [ground floor] windows like they can in Daytona, but they have the added element of going upstairs and looking down on the cars while they're in the garage bays," Powell said. "There's nothing like it in the sport."

Powell said his staff would be ready for any last-minute event glitches, as they always are.

"We're excited about this whole first NASCAR weekend because we think it's going to offer access to race fans that's unlike anything else in motorsports," Powell said, paying homage to track owner Speedway Motorsports Inc.'s chairman, Bruton Smith. "One thing that Bruton has been amazing at is setting the bar up higher, and he has really moved it by leaps and bounds, this year, with this go-round.

"Las Vegas is a special city and he's built a special facility to entertain NASCAR fans. It's going to be unlike anything in the history of the sport."

The new complex includes a combination spa and salon and a workout room for media, competitors and their wives to access everything available to patrons in similar facilities outside motorsports venues.

Powell said fan access to the Neon Garage was still available. Motley said the access was available to either grandstand patrons or to infield fans as an upgrade.

"The response has been off the charts -- more than we expected," Powell said. "This is an unknown quanitity for the race fan. They don't know what they're getting.

"But I will guarantee you ... they're going to go back home and say, 'You won't believe what I was able to do when I went to Las Vegas.'"