Friday, March 14, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
Bobby Labonte has been coming to Las Vegas for years, but the big attraction has always been the gaming tables in Strip casinos.
After taking five laps around the new Las Vegas Motor Speedway during practice for Sunday's NASCAR Busch Grand National Las Vegas 300, the black-asphalt oval supplanted the green-felt tables as his favorite tourist destination.
"Oh, man, this track is beautiful," Labonte said after getting his first look at the 1.5-mile superspeedway. "This is awesome. It's just super, (the racing surface) is nice and smooth and it's going to be a good race track to race on."
Labonte wasn't alone in his praise of the $200 million facility. NASCAR Winston Cup regular Joe Nemechek was gushing about the track after setting the fastest unofficial time during Thursday's practice.
"If anybody else is going to build a racetrack, they should build it like this," Nemechek said after turning a 157.756-mph lap in his Bell South Mobility Chevrolet. "It's totally unique. I think this is one of the best kinds of race tracks ... it's complicated, but you can figure out how to drive it.
"You have to have a strong engine, and the chassis has to work, but you really have to drive the racetrack."
Three other drivers, including Winston Cup regular Dick Trickle, posted speeds in excess of 157 mph during Thursday afternoon's practice. The speed is close to the qualifying mark of 157.909 set by pole-sitter Bryan Reffner for last November's NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at LVMS, but well off Arie Luyendyk's track-record 226.491 set during qualifying for last summer's Indy Racing League event.
Trickle, the uncle of local racer Chris Trickle who was critically wounded in a shooting last month, said LVMS combines the best features of some of the top Winston Cup tracks.
"It's one of the nicer tracks, for sure," said Trickle, who clocked the day's second-fastest lap (157.540) after making numerous changes in his Dura-Lube Chevrolet's setup. "It's like a bigger Richmond and maybe a little bit like Michigan -- it's in between them but every bit as good as either."
Jason Keller said the track rates as the best he has driven in his three full seasons on the Busch circuit.
"This place has got to be the smoothest racetrack we've ever run on -- it's really an immaculate surface," Keller said after running a 154.445-mph lap in his Slim Jim Chevrolet. "This place is just gorgeous -- for a racer, it's really a neat racetrack.
"It's a racers' dream, as far as the surface and everything, and I think it's going to be a great show for the fans because you're not going to have one-groove racing; you're going to have two or three grooves and they're going to get their money's worth if they come here and watch this race."
Phil Parsons, one of 13 drivers to top the 155-mph mark Thursday, said the track should provide fans with a top-notch race Sunday afternoon.
"It's a terrific facility, it really is," said Parsons, who ran a fast lap of 155.101 in his ChannelLock Tools Chevrolet. "It's as nice as I've ever seen. The racetrack is really smooth, they did a nice paving job. It's wide and it looks like we'll be able to run side by side. It's a good, quality asphalt and it was applied in the proper manner so I don't anticipate any trouble whatsoever. It should be a heck of a show."
Randy LaJoie, the defending Busch Series champion, may have been the only driver Thursday who wasn't surprised by the quality of the racing surface.
"It's the same as I figured -- awesome," said LaJoie, who drove one of the Richard Petty Driving Experience cars at LVMS earlier this winter and is one of only a few drivers in Sunday's field who has any experience on the track. "It's a great, great race track -- just like I've been saying.
"They did a fabulous job building this place and it's going to be great for racing."
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