SPORTS CITY
LAS VEGAS — Not too many years ago, NASCAR was the biggest show on the Strip during its annual week in Las Vegas.
This week, the fast cars are competing for Sin City sports fans with the NHL’s firstplace Vegas Golden Knights, the UFC 222 mixed martial arts show and a major international rugby tournament. That’s all leading into next week, when several college basketball tournaments will invade town. Later in the year, soccer’s Las Vegas Lights FC and the WNBA’s Las Vegas Aces will take center stage — and it’s all prelude to the impending arrival of the NFL’s Raiders, likely in 2020.
This former sports desert has become a mecca, but the drivers who grew up here don’t mind the competition. In fact, they’re thrilled. “It’s definitely grown,” Kyle Busch said Friday before qualifying. “When I was a kid here, I always kind of wondered why we didn’t have a professional team of any kind, whether it would be hockey or basketball or baseball or football.”
But Las Vegas didn’t have a major pro sports team while Kyle and his brother, fellow NASCAR driver Kurt Busch, grew up here in the 1980s and 1990s. Sure, Jerry Tarkanian’s UNLV Runnin’ Rebels were beloved, but it wasn’t the same as the world’s best athletes rolling into the town where many top entertainers already made their home.
“It really kind of blows my mind,” said Xfinity Series driver Spencer Gallagher, a Palo Verde High School graduate who raced in the NASCAR Legends series at Las Vegas Motor Speedway before moving into higher circuits. “You grow up in this town for 20 years hoping and wishing for any kind of sports team, and the floodgates just opened. We went from going our whole lives having to pick other (cities’) sports teams to cheer for, and now we’ve got a bevy of options to choose from.”
Several sectors of the athletic world are currently converging for what Vegas is calling the “Ultimate Sports Weekend.” Representatives from NASCAR, UFC, the Golden Knights and the 2018 USA Sevens rugby tourney met for a pep rally earlier this week outside T-Mobile Arena, which will host the Pac-12 men’s basketball tournament starting Wednesday.
“It’s incredible,” said Kurt Busch, a Durango High School graduate, just like his younger brother.
“The sports dominance that we’re experiencing here in Vegas is similar to the different trends we’ve seen with the hotels. It was a family atmosphere back in the ’90s, and then it seemed like it turned into the nightclub atmosphere, and then it was the chefs from around the world who created a residency and they had their type of marquee restaurant introduced to the hotels and casinos. Now we’re going through a sports phase, and I think it’s huge.”
The 2018 Cup Series season is still young, but the Busch brothers would love to get a win on their hometown track. Kurt has never won here, while Kyle has one Cup Series win in 2009 and an Xfinity Series win in 2016.
Kurt is fairly certain he has a car capable of doing it after Stewart-Haas Racing got off to a stellar start to the season in its Ford Fusions. Kevin Harvick won last week at Atlanta Motor Speedway, where fellow SHR drivers Clint Bowyer (third) and Kurt (seventh) also had strong performances.
“It would be huge,” Kurt said of a Vegas win. “I’ve put too much pressure on myself every year I come back, and I keep trying to come back and be looser and just let the race come to us. I hope that we’re able to find that raw speed in the car that we need in the second half of the race.
“A teammate won last week, so there should be no
Blaney up front
Ryan Blaney won the pole position for Sunday’s Cup Series race. He earned his third career pole with a lap at 191.489 mph in his Team Penske Ford in windy conditions Friday night.
Harvick kept up his outstanding start to the season and secured a front-row Ford lockout with a second-place finish in qualifying at 190.248 mph.
Fords claimed the top three spots and five of the first eight. Kurt Busch qualified right behind Harvick at 190.067 mph, while Martin Truex Jr. drove his Toyota into fourth.