LVMS is a modern-day marvel, but local fans continue to flock to quaint Phoenix mile

PHOENIX -- If the Las Vegas Motor Speedway represents auto racing's future, as many in the industry maintain, Phoenix International Raceway serves as a link to the sport's past.

Although the one-mile paved oval race track has been completely rebuilt since it first opened its gates in 1964, PIR retains much of the charm of the short-track bullrings that spawned professional stock-car racing in the 1930s.

Almost nonstop refurbishments over the past 13 years have seen the Phoenix Mile increase its grandstand seating to 72,500 and add luxury suites atop two of its grandstand towers. LVMS, on the other hand, opened in 1996 with permanent seating for 107,000 and 102 luxury suites.

While PIR has been a fixture in the Southwest for nearly 35 years -- outlasting other more modern facilities such as the defunct Ontario Motor Speedway -- its operators don't resent another new and bigger "kid" moving into the neighborhood.

On the contrary, they not only welcome a facility such as the Las Vegas Motor Speedway opening some 300 miles to the north, they relish the potential opportunity it provides.

"With the construction of the Las Vegas Speedway, we realize it gives us more of an opportunity to promote our events," PIR vice president Steve Des Georges said Sunday during the running of the annual NASCAR Winston Cup race here.

"Going back three or four years, as the (Las Vegas) Speedway began to take shape, a lot of people in the media and within the racing community asked us what we thought -- if the Las Vegas Speedway would hurt us from a competition standpoint.

"The tack we took was a very positive one (because) as Las Vegas flourishes and as the Speedway flourishes, so too will PIR. If the Speedway does its job promoting, marketing and publicizing its events, it will create new fans for PIR."

Since the first running of NASCAR's premier division in Phoenix in 1988, PIR routinely advertised its races in Las Vegas. That practice has tailed off since LVMS opened two years ago, but that hasn't stopped diehard Southern Nevada race fans from making an annual pilgrimage across the desert to watch the stock cars run at PIR.

Before and after each fall race at PIR, the stretch of U.S. Highway 93 from Las Vegas to Phoenix is speckled with cars, trucks and motorhomes that clearly are headed to PIR, each sporting some sort of advertisement of the occupants' favorite driver.

Ditto for Sky Harbor Airport. Planes heading for Las Vegas on Sunday night following a NASCAR race are filled with race fans, many wearing shirts and hats bearing the logos and likenesses of their favorite drivers.

"Our customers don't specify why they're traveling, but sometimes you can figure out that during a certain weekend there is a higher (passenger) load factor because there is some huge event going on," Southwest Airlines spokeswoman Carol Pearson said.

Pearson declined to give out specific information on the number of passengers who used the airline to fly from Las Vegas to Phoenix on race weekend, calling it closely guarded "competitive information."

Des Georges, however, doesn't need a head count from the state troopers or the airlines to know that Southern Nevada was well represented among the estimated 109,000 fans who showed up to watch Rusty Wallace win Sunday's rain-shortened Dura-Lube/Kmart 500 Sunday at PIR.

"We know people from Las Vegas come here to our events," Des Georges said. "Nevada shows up -- and it's more than a blip on the radar screen -- and we assume the majority are coming from Las Vegas.

"Las Vegas definitely is an important market for us. All you have to do is go to the infield motorhome parking area and you will see quite a few Nevada (license) plates."

Last weekend, two such Nevada plates were affixed to a custom-built motorhome owned by longtime Las Vegas residents Rex and Derry Riggs. The retired couple have watched every Winston Cup race since 1988 from the PIR infield and have had the same spot, between turns three and four, for the past eight years.

"This is the only Winston Cup race we get to," Derry Riggs, a self-described NASCAR fanatic, said. "This is my fix. Once a year I've got to hear it, feel it and smell it ... and this is about as close as you can get to it."

Not much changes from year to year in the Riggs' race weekend neighborhood. Because motorhome parking in the tiny infield area is so limited, there is a lengthy waiting list for spaces.

"Somebody has to die -- literally -- before you can get a space now," Rex, a former racer himself who won three consecutive Mint 400 off-road races, said.

"We don't like to sit in the stands. This really is a poor view of the track from here, but it sure is fun."

The Riggses were not the only Las Vegas residents who possessed a coveted infield parking spot for Sunday's race.

"The folks in the motorhome next to us are from Utah, but they used to live in Las Vegas," Derry said. "And there are quite a few others in here with Nevada plates."

Although the Riggses did not take their motorhome to the inaugural Las Vegas 400 Winston Cup race this past March, they said they wouldn't miss a Cup race at PIR.

"This track is a really friendly place to be," Derry said. "You start bonding with the other fans after a while because you see them year after year.

"And this is such a fan-friendly track."

Apparently, more than a few other Southern Nevada race fans agree.

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