CART's not on the way to LVMS -- yet

Although Championship Auto Racing Teams' (CART) decision this week to drop the Cleveland Grand Prix leaves the open-wheel series with a hole in its schedule, that void won't be filled with a race in Las Vegas.

At least not next year.

Las Vegas Motor Speedway general manager Chris Powell said he and CART chairman and CEO Andrew Craig are no closer to reaching an agreement to stage a CART race at LVMS. Craig said earlier this month that a CART race here in 2000 would not be feasible -- but left the door open for a race in 2001 and beyond.

The void in CART's schedule likely will be filled by Road Atlanta, a permanent road course outside of Atlanta. Published reports have indicated that CART owners have voted to replace Cleveland with Road Atlanta.

"There are several major markets throughout the U.S., as well as around the world, that are very interested in conducting Champ Car events," Craig said in a prepared statement. "This opening on our schedule allows us to seriously pursue some very attractive options."

The rival Indy Racing League will replace CART in Cleveland next year, and will run on a temporary 1.2-mile oval at the Burke Lakefront Airport.

The same factor that sank the CART race in Cleveland is holding up negotiations between LVMS and CART: money.

CART raised its sanctioning fee in Cleveland from $1.6 million to more than $2 million, according to published reports. Cleveland officials balked and CART came back with a final offer of $1.9 million, which also was refused.

According to sources close to the CART-LVMS negotiations, the open-wheel series is asking for a sanctioning fee of $2.5 million to hold a CART race in Las Vegas and track owner Bruton Smith and Powell have dismissed that figure as too high.

"I think Andrew Craig and the people at CART know pretty much how we feel about different issues," Powell said, while not speaking directly to the sanctioning fee. "The way I left it with (Craig) was that there were a couple of issues which I was interested to hear about after he spoke with members of his board and I haven't heard back from him on that.

"He told me he was going to talk to a couple of people about a few issues and he would get back with me ... but it wasn't 'I'll get back to you by such-and-such a date.' "

Powell said that at no time during his talks with Craig was the prospect mentioned of replacing Cleveland with a race in Las Vegas.

"That never came up," Powell said. "In all my talks with Andrew, he has talked about growing the schedule rather than replacing other races."

Craig said in April and reiterated earlier this month during a visit to Las Vegas that while he is very interested in staging a CART race on the LVMS 1.5-mile superspeedway, that the earliest a race could be held here would be 2001.

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