[Nick Koan]

Looks like Champ Car will be running in the streets of downtown Vegas next year. I know Bernie Ecclestone has been saying he thinks Vegas would be great for an F1 race, so maybe this can act as a test for F1 as well.

http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_ho...l-20-Thu-2006/

Instead of zipping around Las Vegas Motor Speedway's oval track, the sleek Indy-style cars of the Champ Car World Series soon will race past some of the city's oldest casinos that make up the Fremont Street Experience.

The Las Vegas City Council voted unanimously Wednesday to allow DDB Ventures to stage the Vegas Grand Prix on downtown streets for the next five years, beginning with the inaugural race on April 8, 2007. Racing over the April 6 to 8 weekend will mark the season opener for the open-wheel series.

Champ Cars are nearly identical to those raced in the Indianapolis 500. They will be capable of speeds up to 160 mph along the sweeping curve of Grand Central Parkway.

"The council may be asked to temporarily suspend the speed limits on these streets," city manager Doug Selby, who has been negotiating with the promoters, jokingly said.

The event is owned by movie producer Brad Yonover and Dale Jensen, a venture capitalist from Phoenix who owns about 25 percent of baseball's Arizona Diamondbacks and part of the NBA's Phoenix Suns.

Promoters said the three-day crowd will total 150,000 and inject $71.5 million into the economy.

"This gives the city quite a 1-2 punch with the NBA All-Star Game (Feb. 1 and this race shortly thereafter," Mayor Oscar Goodman said. He did not include the NASCAR Nextel Cup race in March at the speedway, which is on unincorporated land in Clark County.

Champ Car races were held at the speedway the past two years in September but will not be held there this year because of insufficient spectator interest.

The new Grand Prix will be held over Easter weekend, in wards represented by Councilman Lawrence Weekly and Councilwoman Lois Tarkanian.

Weekly voiced support for the project during the meeting and added that Tarkanian, who did not attend, had expressed to him her excitement for the event. Weekly then moved for approval by the council. The vote was 6-0 in favor of the proposal.

The city has agreed to a one-time contribution of $500,000 toward street improvements on the course, and event promoters will spend an additional $1.3 million to bring the streets up to race standards.

The city's budget had called for a total of only $250,000 in street projects along the course over the next five years, Selby said.

The 2.44-mile course will start and finish on Grand Central Parkway, where pit lane, most grandstands and VIP viewing areas will be placed.

The course will run counterclockwise through the Bonneville Avenue tunnel, down part of Main Street before jagging through streets around the Fremont Street Experience, then returning through the Ogden Avenue tunnel to Grand Central.

One unique feature for the race will be areas along the course where no admission fee will be charged. However, those spectators will not have access to the grandstands, race officials said.

Steve Johnson, chief executive and president of Champ Car, said he is unaware of any of the series' current 15 races that provide free viewing areas.

The event will include support races April 6 and 7, a professional boxing card, concerts and other exhibitions, Yonover said.

It will mark the first time a major auto race takes place on Las Vegas city streets and the first time in 23 years that one was held close to the Strip. Champ Car -- then CART -- held races in 1983 and 1984 on a temporary course set up in a Caesars Palace parking lot.