The supposed plans for a Formula 1 race in Las Vegas have so impressed the city’s media that the Las Vegas Review-Journal laughed the suggestion off, although just to make sure the newspaper rang Las Vegas Events (LVE) president Pat Christenson, who said that he had not been involved in any discussions with anyone about bringing F1 back to Las Vegas. LVE is a non-profit organization which serves as the EXCLUSIVE major special events agency for the city. If he does not know about it, one has to wonder who does.
Bernie Ecclestone himself has said that Steve Wynn and Guy Laliberté, who had been named as possible backers, are not in fact involved at all.
The mayor of Las Vegas is Carolyn Goodman, who replaced her husband in the role in 2011. From what I hear Mayor Goodman (Mark I) promised the casinos that he would never again close down streets in Las Vegas for a car race after the Champ Car flop in 2007 and Mayor Goodman (Mark II) will no doubt know the full story and will be thinking along similar lines. The 2007 event attracted an estimated 40,000 spectators but the promoters lost millions and many downtown businesses complained that they lost revenues as a result. The promoter – DDB Ventures – closed down afterwards.
The other thing to bear in mind is that Las Vegas Motor Speedway has a vested interest in NOT having rivals races in the city. The facility is owned by Speedway Motorsports Inc, which is run by Bruton Smith and back in 1998 when Las Vegas last tried to host an F1 race, local sources told the Las Vegas Sun newspaper that speedway officials were doing everything they could to block a bid to build a golf course/race track because they did not want the competition.
The fact that the F1 to Vegas reports appeared in Forbes might suggest that there is some credibility to the story, but then again it might simply suggest that the quality of the Forbes reporting had gone down since the company was sold to Hong Kong’s Integrated Whale Media Investments in the summer.
joeblogsf1 
Wow, this is a truly funny post. Odd that no one checked with LVE first, isn’t it?
Well, that would seem to be the job of an actual reporter, would it not?
Evidently, the Forbes guy is more of a stenographer…
Plagiarizing a comedy bit developed by the late great Johnny Carson, Karnak The Magificent:
The answer: “A bloody nose and bruised back side.”
The Question: ” What will Bernie receive taking on Bruton Smith and NASCAR.”
Wishing I could be in Austin for your evening, so much to discuss! A target rich environment as the military would describe it.
I think your military hint is not funny at all, taking into account what mess the military created in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, to name just a few. Please read the recent disclosure about backwater and Iraqi civilians as well.
Let’s stop this thread straight away please.
Thank you for saving me the trouble of a reply, whether you choose to publish this or not.
I though you will be interested to know that in the Spanish media there are continuous talk about another(!!) street race, this time in Madrid.
The story has been going on for the last 2-3 days and got even the attention of the organizers of the race in Barcelona, who claim can take any competition, they not worried and yadayada.
I hope, even though I would like another GP in Spain this is just another of those twisty manoeuvres of Mr E.
It seems is only mentioned in the Spanish media, btw…
I have heard it. My response was a story called More Races in F1?
“Integrated Whale Media Investments”???? Awesome name… I’m calling my next business venture Integrated Aardvark.
Too late, mate…
https://www.integratedbyaardvark.com/pages/video
A report on the hospital in Texas that screwed up the treatment of its Ebola patient mentioned the basic equipment they didn’t have on hand for nurses. Among the items mentioned were “Fluid resistant booties”… which struck me as a great name for a band…
This is related to F1?
You’re screwing up FOM’s leverage in their negotiations with whomever the alternative party is in the States. Sounds just like Donnington all over again…
No, I am not. I am quite sure that the alternative parties are well advised.
Just joking…it’s all a game of brinkmanship, the best example of which was the Siverstone scenario with a planning application submitted and the diggers operating on site for Donnington.
Is it true what happened with the Dubai GP negotiations? Meetings arranged, FOM folk kept waiting, very bad manners so off to Abu Dhabi…
No idea
“Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own” is the ringing endorsement written by Forbes right next to the name of their contributor.
In this case the contributor has a lot in common with ‘matter’ that accumulates downstream, in more ways than one.
What’s the definition of contributor? It must not include vetting facts that would require journalistic ethics.
BURIED IN VEGAS: (working title)
I guess Bernie knows what he has stepped into here.
Big money, low down hoodlums, assassins, easy women. That chap Giancanna whose moll dated JFK is still involved. A dozen shallow graves, and Columbo and Lieut Bullitt are called in.
It would take Joe 15 minutes to write the script, and I hereby claim my 45%.
Joe, I think you’ll find how Forbes works interesting in reference to this story — I too am a journalist in another field and know some Forbes contributors.
For some time now and before the sale you alluded to, Forbes has been running what in some eyes might be termed a ‘content pyramid scheme’. Basically, after a trial period, contributors are left to run things on their own with more or less no editorial oversight. Contributors own the copyright and are liable for the content they post.
The catch is that the flat rate is very low, much less than £100 per post I believe. The incentive is that contributors earn money based on the amount of traffic each posts receives over its entire lifetime, and if a post does particularly well it can become very lucrative indeed as some acquaintances of mine can attest.
Looking at the posts of the author in question, I can guarantee he isn’t making much money out of it at all, though saying ‘I write for Forbes’ has a certain appeal for a freelancer even if the brand is increasingly being pulled through the mud by its free-wheeling editorial policies.
Isn’t this guy Business Editor on Pitpass? Or did they dump who as well?
Fancy title. Pitpass is not some vast steel band glass building you know.
Does it even have a pitpass?
He he he
“Does it (PitPass) even have a pitpass?”
Ouch! That’s gotta hurt!
A vitual pass, all the resources of the Interweb at his fingertips?
“who said that he had not been involved in any discussions with anyone about bringing F1 back to Las Vegas.”
Given some of your previous posts about F1 double-speak, this might mean that he’s been involved in many email exchanges and has sent lackeys to “discuss” in his place.
But given the rest of the evidence, it seems fair to expect that Las Vegas won’t materialise.
The guy is not in F1
The Strip is not in the city limits and the city would have no say over what happens in Clark County. Everything on the Strip south of Sahara (which is basically the entire Strip) is in Clark County, outside of city jurisdiction by design.
It’s not required to involve LVE for events in the city or county but an event of this nature would be foolish not to use them. They are used because of the perks involved with utilizing their services which can include subsidies for the event from an tax based fund including paying for LVE services. Here is a link to the kind of things they provide http://www.lasvegasevents.com/?p=1&id=how-do-you-work-with-lve&pg=event-producers
That said, those that work in the event/entertainment industry in town have heard nothing about any such race. Even if the event wasn’t in the city or used LVE they most likely would have heard about it or been approached. Typically when an event of this scale is planned the promoters contact the locals first, county or city, the LVCVA and the big resort owners to get buy in. In this case, no one has heard a thing. And if they have, they aren’t talking which for an event like this is extremely unlikely given that the location is said to be on the Strip.
Contrary to what some may say, Bruton Smith/SMI don’t have enough pull in town to quash an F1 race if the local power brokers decided it’s a good thing. SMI enjoys a symbiotic relationship with the resorts and if they think it’s a good idea they’ll do it regardless of what SMI says with SMI being smart enough not to damage that relationship. The resorts still run the town, with the government they bought and paid for. A carpetbagger from the Carolinas or an octogenarian from the UK isn’t going to change that.