Section B · Page 6
The University Daily Kansan
Friday, February 27, 1998
Las Vegas revs up new track
The Associated Press
LAS VEGAS — The Las Vegas 400 should fit in just fine with NASCAR's new big event concept.
With sparkling new tracks the order of business these days, the Winston Cup series is starting to burn rubber on new roads throughout the country.
There was a NASCAR stock car race in Las Vegas in 1955, but that was on a one-mile dirt oval that no longer exists. The race Sunday will be held on a 1/2 mile banked oval at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, a Taj Mahal of motorstores in the desert about 10 miles west of the Strip.
NASCAR
The track, which seats more than 103,000 fans and has 102 luxury suites, is the equal of the gleaming new Texas Motor Speedway and California Speedway, which joined the Winston Cup family last season.
"It compares as much to Michigan as it does to Richmond or Phoenix," said Mark Martin, who tested at the new track in January. "It's just a nice race track. That's the way I would have done it, if I was doing one."
The corners of the new track are banked at 12 degrees, while the front straightaway is banked 9 degrees and the back straightaway is 3 degrees.
Rusty Wallace, the Winston Cup point leader after the first two races, is looking forward to the race.
"One of the weirdest things about the whole deal is that I've been out to Las Vegas several times during the last few years doing promotional work on behalf of NASCAR and the track, but I've yet to drive a race car on the track," he said. "It's going to
make for a heck of a race weekend for drivers, crews, fans, sponsors ... everybody."
Bobby Labonte, unlike Martin and Wallace, has raced on the track. He finished 12th last fall in the inaugural Busch Series event.
"It's a nice place, an absolutely beautiful facility," Labonte said. "The track is real smooth, and it's not as flat as you think. You need a lot of motor to get around here. It's just a horsepower race track."
All Winston Cup drivers had an opportunity to try out the new track during a four-hour practice yesterday. The extra-long session was scheduled by NASCAR to give the teams that hadn't tested at Las Vegas a taste of the track.
“四 hours should be plenty to get everybody up to speed,” said Larry McReynolds, crew chief for Dale Earnhardt.
American leads in LPGA might have course record
The Associated Press
GOLD COAST, Australia — Cindy Rarick, seeking her first LPGA victory since 1991, shot a 7-under-par 65 yesterday and led by three strokes after the first round of the Australian Ladies Masters.
"I'm really elated," said Rarick, a 38-year-old American who dropped to 118th on the money list last year with earnings of $41,686. "I've been going through a divorce for the past three or four years. It really screws you up mentally."
Rarick, a five-time winner in 14 seasons on the tour, had eight birdies and a bogey on the Royal Pines Resort course. Officials were unsure if the round qualified
as a course record. England's Laura Davies shot a 64 in her 1994 victory, when the course played to a par of 73.
Meanwhile, Nicole Lowien of Australia took some of the spotlight from Rarick, estimating in a column for next month's edition of Golf Australian magazine that 50 percent of LPGA players are lesbians.
"I've got no problem with what I said, none at all," Lowlen said after her opening 78. "I think it needed to be said. ... I just wanted to give the players' point of view. ... I don't regret writing it at all."
Lowien added that she was "fully heterosexual."
"I think the more open you can
be on the subject the better," Lowien said. "Why shut things in the closet?"
Americans Annette DeLuca and Kim Saiki, South Korea's Ko Wooison and Australia's Alison Munt were tied for second at 68.
Swedish star Annika Sorenstam, the 1995 winner, was another stroke back along with Australia's Karrie Webb; Americans Kelly Robbins, Jackie Gallagher-Smith and Julie Piers; Scotland's Kathryn Marshall and Catriona Matthew; and South Korea's Kim Mi-Hyun.
Webb, a seven-time winner in two seasons on the LPGA tour, is winless as a professional in her native Australia.
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