When Kurt Busch first raced at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in 1998, the track sat miles beyond the city’s northern edge, near Nellis Air Force Base. He doubted fans would make the trek. Twenty-seven years later, the speedway hosts two NASCAR weekends — including the South Point 400 playoff race — and the surrounding area has filled in with development.
Busch, a Las Vegas native and NASCAR Hall of Famer who retired in 2023, now serves in an advisory role for Michael Jordan’s 23XI Racing team. He spoke Friday at a racing luncheon at Joe’s Seafood, Prime Steak & Stone Crab at the Forum Shops at Caesars, alongside Las Vegas Motor Speedway Senior Vice President and GM Patrick Lindsey.
Reflecting on the track’s early days, Busch said, “It’s a tourism town, and we didn’t think the track would work. Like it’s so far out there, it’s next to the Air Force base, but it did.” He added, “It’s been huge. You know, it’s part of NASCAR’s playoffs. I consider it a marquee win when you win the Vegas race. It’s my hometown, but it is in the top five (races to win).”
Las Vegas has since added the NFL’s Raiders, the NHL’s Golden Knights, the WNBA’s Aces, and MLB’s Athletics (two years from playing on the Strip), plus three years of the Formula One Las Vegas Grand Prix. Busch doesn’t see NASCAR being overshadowed.
“With the sports vibe here now in Vegas, I think it’s just the generational shift of what’s going on, especially the Raiders, and Tom Brady’s involved, and Vegas is still doing strongly,” Busch said. “Everything around the track continues to grow because of the other sports coming in.”
Comparing NASCAR to F1, Busch noted that each has pros and cons. F1’s street circuit disrupts Strip traffic for weeks each November, while NASCAR’s speedway is farther out. “It’s a catch-22,” he said. “With Formula One, they want to be more towards city centers with newer tracks and newer places that they go. … And yet, there’s positives and there’s negatives. Like the people don’t have to go all the way out to Las Vegas Motor Speedway, but everything’s right here (for F1). So, it hurts with traffic, going east and west across the Strip in Vegas. But I see there’s positives and negatives to anything. But again, it’s just adapting, evolving, and continuing to move forward. This town knows it’s tourism and this town knows how to bring people in from around the globe.”
While Busch has no problem with F1 on city streets, he hopes open-wheel racers will one day try the speedway. “I don’t see it as a problem,” he said, “but it’d be cool if they tried our big track out there once and see how it went.”
