Las Vegas Motor Speedway NASCAR Date Added – 2 Races in 2018 – New Hampshire Motor Speedway expected to lose a date
Moments ago, Las Vegas Motor Speedway announced they will be adding a 2nd NASCAR weekend during the 2018 season. View the announcement video below.
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority is offering 1 million up front in sponsorship. But it doesn’t stop there, an additional $500,000 is being offered to promote the event. That’s guarantee’d money for track owner’s, before a single ticket is sold.
Those Las Vegas funds were approved today via a vote. Moments later, the track made the official announcement of the second LVMS race. 25.5 million over the next 10 years will go directly to SMI from the Las Vegas checkbook, in support of the Vegas based track.
The news was released ahead of the upcoming race weekend. Two days before on-track activity for the 20th consecutive Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race weekend begins at Las Vegas.
Specific dates for the second Las Vegas Motor Speedway NASCAR race have not been finalized. However, track officials did confirm both races will be tripleheader events. All 3 tiers of NASCAR will be showcased, twice per year, in a popular destination city.
What did their events look like previously? Las Vegas hosted the Monster Energy Cup Series and NASCAR XFINITY Series in March. Then a stand-alone event for the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series in the fall.
The 1.5-mile track, owned by Speedway Motorsports Inc., opened in 1996. In it’s debut they hosted a Camping World Truck Series race. The following year they hosted an XFINITY Series date.
The first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series event wasn’t hosted at the speedway until 1998, two years after their purchase. Mark Martin won the first Monster Energy Series event. All 19 Monster Energy Series events have been the third race of the NASCAR season.
SMI currently owns eight tracks that host 12 of the 36 Monster Energy Cup Series events. The added Las Vegas date will result in the loss of a race at a different SMI owned track. Other venues under the SMI umbrella are Atlanta, Bristol, Charlotte, Kentucky, New Hampshire, Sonoma and Texas.
It’s most common that New Hampshire Motor Speedway will lose one of their two date.
The schedule change is the first major shift for the series since 2015. They last previous schedule change came via Atlanta Motor Speedway. Their Labor Day weekend date was moved to follow the season-opening Daytona 500. Darlington Raceway’s early spring date filled the shoes of the old Atlanta date.
2017 Las Vegas Race Announcement Video
Links
Las Vegas Motor Speedway
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
