Dirt race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway ‘was like driving on ice’

There is rain in the forecast for the first NASCAR Cup Series race on dirt in more than 50 years Sunday, which could dampen the proceedings at Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee.

Given what transpired at Las Vegas Motor Speedway’s first NASCAR race on dirt in September 2018, that might not be such a bad thing.

Dry weather and a dry track produced a cloud of dust that made the track seem to disappear.

“It had been 100 degrees every day, and it was just so hard to get enough water in the ground because it was evaporating as soon as we did it,” Jeff Motley, LVMS public relations vice president, recalled of a K&N Pro Series West (now known as the ARCA Menards Series) race won by Sheldon Creed, the 2020 NASCAR Truck Series champion.

Even in practice laps before the race, Derek Thorn, one of the drivers that night, said the track “was like driving on ice in Canada in a rental car, just slippery as heck.”

That was with just one car on the track. With a whole field of them, the dust cloud was so severe that the drivers couldn’t see where they were going — never a good idea in an auto race. There was a multicar crash on the first lap that brought out both the red flag and the water trucks before the race could continue.

A warm-up race to test conditions at a Bristol bullring covered with dirt went much smoother. With rain in the forecast, dust is expected to be the least of the drivers’ worries, though many aren’t exactly sure what to expect. But too much rain, and there won’t be a race — the cars and drivers won’t be allowed to compete in mud.

“I’m not a dirt guy, but I did race on dirt when I was a kid,” two-time Cup Series champion Kyle Busch said of his Las Vegas upbringing, and the prospect of sliding a ponderous stock car around a high-banked dirt track instead of a lighter car built for the purpose. “It seems like it’s a full-fledged ice rink, trying to make your way around the track.”

Cup Series regulars Kyle Larson, winner of the recent Pennzoil 400 at LVMS, and Christopher Bell grew up racing open-wheel cars on dirt. But if it sounds as if Busch is less than enthusiastic about it, that’s because he is.

“I’d never given much (thought) to it, but obviously now I have no choice,” said Busch, who will start the novelty race 12th in points and still is seeking his first victory of 2021. “It’s in the Cup Series, so we will go out there and give it everything we’ve got and see what we can do.”

Contact Ron Kantowski at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow @ronkantowski on Twitter.