Street / oval doubleheader at Las Vegas for 2012?

[NaBUru38]

IRL CEO Randy Bernard is thinking big:

Originally Posted by Curt Cavin

[...] a street course race on The Strip to go with an oval-track event at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Both would be season-ending events for their respective disciplines (non-ovals and ovals).

That would be amazing, but can it happen? Will teams accept switching over cars during a weekend? How long will that weekend be? Your thoughts?

[JagtechOhio]

Practicality aside, I love this idea. One gimmick that I always thought would make the evening news is if they could run the race cars in a "parade" of sorts...block off some streets and drive the whole field to or from the track.

So you could run the street race, then parade the cars down the length of the Vegas strip and onto the transporters to head to the oval track.That doesn't get a helicopter shot on the news??

Back to reality, Larry Curry said the oval/ road changeover is 1 1/2 days of work. So it doesn't seem practical with the current cars, but the new chassis will require less of a conversion.

Vegas is in bad economic straights right now. Recession hurts travel, less travel hurts destination resorts, and unemployment there is 10%. Loads of housing forclosures.

If they can sell Vegas an oval race, great. Selling a street race is a lot tougher, since the casino owners would rather have easy access for their gambling visitors than racing fans.

Selling both races would be close to unbelievable. Nice dream, though.

[Quintin03]

There's a decent street course there already and it worked. No need to sell it, more like buying it. Don't think the chassis change is going to matter, it's the very last weekend for these chassis so if the left over chassis are rented at a discount all teams could set up one as the street car and one as the oval car, leaving the usual spare as not set up untill needed and taking necessary parts to create either.

[JagtechOhio]

OK, thanks. I'll book my flight.

[Quintin03]

Wow man, slow down, it isn't even certain the Indycars will run in Vegas next year. They are still exploring a one-off finale at Fontana if Vegas can't get through. Of course it's just a rental car and route 15 that separate you from getting there.

[JagtechOhio]

By rental car, you mean...

The chassis I can rent at a discount with the extra rented engine installed to run on the road race course that's still set up in the streets of Las Vegas?

Or are you just missing some necessary parts to create either? And does the pixie dust help you pick roulette numbers any better?

[icemachine]

MiJack proposed a double for Cleveland at one point, this is far more awesome. I almost suggested something like this on the 2011 schedule thread and then thought it would get laughed off. I could see it working as a week long event, with a Friday night Oval and Sunday afternoon street race.

[gttouring]

Could be great of course the double header idea can get huge. Daytona?

[Matt]

Originally Posted by icemachine

MiJack proposed a double for Cleveland at one point, this is far more awesome. I almost suggested something like this on the 2011 schedule thread and then thought it would get laughed off. I could see it working as a week long event, with a Friday night Oval and Sunday afternoon street race.

What oval would they have run at in Cleveland?

[icemachine]

Originally Posted by Matt

What oval would they have run at in Cleveland?

It was to have been done at the airport

http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/artic...-course-event/

[Quintin03]

And when CART was still around the IRL wanted this

[Tim Northcutt]

The cost of setting up a temporary street circuit is in the millions of $, gang...

To make any money, fans would have to get tickets to both and the track is away from the strip...

The cost for the fans to pay to see both races would be extemely steep for most.

I'm afraid the economics of this just would not work for a promoter in this scenario.

[marc sproule]

Has not a single clue about what it takes to turn a champ car from an oval car to a road racing car or vice versa.

Ask anyone who has ever worked on one what they think of this idea.

They are also living in a fantasy world if they think that they can get enough spectators through the gate to make two races on the same weekend successful.

They should concentrate on making one race successful.

It's definitely an interesting sounding idea but the reality of trying to make something like that happen has obviously not infiltrated the thinking of those who think this is a good idea, especially in Vegas.

The sound you hear is me shaking my head.

[JagtechOhio]

Rats. And here I already bought my plane ticket.