Faced with new competition on The Strip and the addition of a second NASCAR premier series race, Las Vegas Motor Speedway is making several improvements.
The track will upgrade its premium grandstand seating and create social, digitally wired areas for all ticketed fans. The venue, one of eight owned by Speedway Motorsports Inc., will announce the upgrades this week and expects the work to be done by the track’s spring race weekend.
LVMS and SMI declined to disclose the project’s cost but Kevin Camper, LVMS’s senior vice president of sales and marketing, called it “a significant commitment.”
Detroit-based Rossetti will design the LVMS project. The architect designed recent projects at Daytona and Phoenix, two tracks owned by SMI rival International Speedway Corp.
LVMS’s move comes amid the addition to the city of the NHL’s Golden Knights at the year-and-a-half-old T-Mobile Arena, the upcoming move there by the NFL’s Oakland Raiders, and a new minor league ballpark being built in the area.
“With us being in the entertainment capital of the world and what’s happening here on the sports landscape in town, we really wanted to make sure that our facility was on par or above that to the other properties coming online,” Camper said.
The track will redesign its four clubhouses that sit a level below its suites on the main Section 2 grandstand, making them more exclusive and modern. Three of the four clubhouses will be refurbished but kept as clubhouses. Currently, general admission fans seated near those three areas can roam around the decks of the clubhouses. But as part of the upgrades, those areas will be limited to ticketed clubhouse patrons.
Clubhouse patrons will have access to an inside area and a reserved seat on the deck overlooking the action below; food and beverage (beer and wine); Wi-Fi; VIP parking; and garage and pit road access. Access costs about $900 per person for the track’s spring NASCAR national series weekend, and about $1,500 for those who sign on for that race and the new second national series weekend that will start in 2018.
Camper said the clubhouse areas, which seat around 1,100 people between the three of them, are already roughly 75 percent sold — even without those patrons knowing about the new upgrades.
The fourth clubhouse, closest to Turn 4, will be turned into a lounge area that can be accessed by anyone with a weekend or premium ticket. The lounge will have an indoor/outdoor bar surrounded by banks of televisions.
The track will see its capacity reduced from the current 100,000, but track officials would not disclose the specific number of seats that will be removed.
LVMS is adding two loge box offerings on its Petty Terrace as an option for premium customers who want a more intimate and private surrounding with indoor and outdoor options. The loge box areas will total just over 200 tickets and will be designed for groups of four, six or eight people.
The Race Control Loge is adjacent to the start/finish line, 26 rows up from the track. It is positioned more for true race fans, and access is being sold only in annual packages for both races at a cost of about $1,800 per person. The Vegas Loge, aimed at more casual fans, will also cost about $1,800 per person and is positioned in the middle of the Turn 1 grandstand. Amenities for both loge box areas include food and beverage (beer and wine); cushioned swivel chairs; access to a private lounge; personal in-seat wait service (a first for the track); private personal belongings storage area; garage and pit road access; in-loge TVs; and free Wi-Fi and FanVision scanner rentals.
Other upgrades include adding a Turn 1 social pavilion at the Petty Terrace, where all ticketed fans will have access to amenities such as phone chargers, Wi-Fi, a large central bar and unique food.
Camper said the upgrades create areas that are more multipurpose-friendly, as the track — located about a 15-minute ride from The Strip — hosts more than 1,400 non-NASCAR events a year. Camper said LVMS is specifically interested in hosting future esports competitions.
The upgrades come after the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority voted this year to give the track $17.5 million, or $2.5 million annually, over seven years as part of an incentive package that came with landing a second NASCAR premier series race. SMI maneuvered the second race to LVMS by shifting a date away from sister track New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
