NASCAR banquet will be a ‘big’ hit in Las Vegas
The only strange thing is that this took so long. NASCAR announced last week that its 2009 Sprint Cup awards banquet will be held Dec. 4 at the Wynn in Las Vegas, ending a long, semi-productive and memorable relationship with New York City and the historic Waldorf-Astoria hotel.
Let’s admit these things early: New York City is fun and vibrant in December. The Waldorf was an elegant host. There are memories attached to December evenings in the Grand Ballroom there that will live as long as memories of great NASCAR races.
Las Vegas, though, will be a dramatic and splashy improvement. NASCAR is all about big – big and noisy and showy. New York City clearly is big, too, but NASCAR trying to put on a big show there was like trying to fit an oval plug into a square hole. There were too many rough corners, too many hurdles to overcome, too many people to jam
into spaces that didn’t work. It was like a high school graduation with far too many invited relatives.
What you have in Las Vegas is an almost endless amount of room – and rooms. Motel rooms. Hotel rooms. Convention center rooms. Banquet rooms. Party rooms. There’s even an Eiffel Tower, for Pete’s sake.
The framework for Champion’s Week in Vegas is still being formed, but the possibilities are vast. One of the biggest complaints about banquet week activities in New York has been that there have been severe limitations on fan access. The awards banquet and related activities have been by invitation only. Although the champion has been hauled around the city for a number of photo opportunities – this has become known as the Jimmie Johnson Manhattan Extravaganza – interaction with fans generally has been limited to those who happen upon the champion as they cross paths.
A victory lap through the city? This was largely frowned upon in New York because of the incredible traffic tie-ups it produced, and NASCAR (or its sponsors) was hit with a huge bill – probably in six figures – for setup and control of the event. In Las Vegas, one suspects the city fathers and mothers will delight in having loud, showy race cars parading down the Strip. And the expense automatically goes away, as the Vegas convention and tourism folks now will be writing the check.
Also, for the first time since the banquet was moved to New York in 1981, it will be held within shouting distance of an actual speedway. Las Vegas Motor Speedway officials have lobbied for the idea of the city hosting the banquet for years, and it is likely that closed-door discussions between NASCAR Chairman Brian France and
Speedway Motorsports Inc. czar Bruton Smith played a significant role in the move.
It isn’t often that NASCAR jumps in to endorse an idea promoted by the SMI folks; in fact, quite the opposite generally has been true over the years, as the two entities have taken different viewpoints on any number of issues. Few would be surprised if SMI technicians came up with a cancer cure only to have NASCAR reject it.
The banquet turn of events is a positive one for that sometimes nettlesome pairing, and it can be only a good thing for the speedway, which obviously should play some sort of central role in Champion’s Week activities.
The move to Vegas opens up a world of possibilities for NASCAR sponsors and team sponsors. The city has convention-center type space spread across numerous hotels and its own huge facility. With almost unlimited space, there are boundless opportunities for displays, appearances and autograph sessions by drivers and fan activities. It could be a vastly expanded version of the old Winston Cup Preview, a popular fan event held for many years in January in Winston-Salem, N.C.
December weather in Las Vegas is almost always cooperative, even when the slot machines aren’t. High temperatures typically are in the upper 50s and lower 60s, giving Champion’s Week planners a whole new palette from which to work in scheduling events.
All in all, it’s a good decision by NASCAR. A leading Las Vegas travel official attended the New York banquet two years ago and predicted NASCAR would never leave Vegas if it made the move. It’s been said that what happens in Vegas stays there.
