SCCA: Las Vegas Nationals worker and flagger report

• Jack Durbin
• MNI - Motorsport News International
• Sat Sep 14 23:31:44 EDT 1996

Subject: Vegas - IRL weekend

IRL at Las Vegas - End of Day 1

copyright 1996 John Dillon

Friday is in the history books, and a new racetrack is making 
headway.  Las Vegas Motor Speedway, though still under 
construction, successfully hosted its first day activities.  We 
started out only 38 minutes late and ended up reasonably early.  

Flag Chief Martin Lotz is doing a great job with organizing his 
limited staff, while Joanne Jensen is doing well as Race Control.  
Mike Mahoney is assisting Joanne and is also wearing an IRL shirt 
this weekend.  Other names you might recognize are Bill Haneline,
Bill Lee, the LaDukes, Gene and Lois Peterson, Jerry and Donna
England, the two Jim Wilsons, Martha Leslie, and Kathy Brown.  
Katie and Vern Jaques will be here tomorrow.

The race track is basically a D-shaped oval with a chicane for the 
non-IRL cars.  The players are ShelCan, FF2000, and Star Formula 
Mazda.  We saw 21 ShelCans today, as well as 34 Mazdas and 29 
FF2000s.  The last two groups promise to provide outstanding 
racing.

We (Las Vegas Region SCCA) are supporting all the races except IRL. 
 We have two concencentric rings of workers.  The observers are on 
the outside of the oval, while the flaggers are on the inside.   
All are working with radios, which means the usual radio problems 
like batteries going down, signal shadows, etc, inability to 
override, etc.  

Linda Haneline (San Diego Flag Chief) is flagging at Turn 1 with 
Tom McKeown; I'm the observer at Turn 1 along with Bob 
Who's-Last-Name-Escapes-Me from Vegas.  Turn 1 is the only real 
turn on the course for our groups; it's a chicane to take the cars 
from the front straight apron to the pit lane road, which these 
three groups use for most of the course.  The original plan was for 
there to be an additional chicane in the back half of the oval, but 
the drivers vocalized their objections successfully and it's not in 
use.  We've had a fair amount of activity in Turn 1--the usual 
spins, off-and-ons, etc, but otherwise quiet.  A few cars have 
tickled the wall in other corners, and Sharif Fathy thumped the 
Turn 4 wall sufficienctly to be transported to the medical center 
for precautionary observation.  Fathy, a deaf driver himself, is 
sponsored by Deaf Motorsports.

Signs of construction are everywhere; the track does not lack for 
money, only for time.  The executive suites are not complete, the 
race control section of the tower was stapled together only a day 
or two ago, and the electricians and phone guys were pulling wire 
through Race Control and the Command Post throughout the day.

When completed, this will be an impressive facility.  Even now, it 
looks like it will be great fun.  I know I'm enjoying my stint at 
Turn 1 so far.

More as it happens and I can find a phone jack....

John Dillon