NASCAR to announce Las Vegas is getting 2nd Cup Series race

A Joey Logano fan cheers during the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Kobalt 400 race at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway in Las Vegas on Sunday, March 6, 2016. (Chase Stevens/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @csstevensphoto

A proposal more than 10 years in the making is expected to become reality Wednesday with an announcement that Las Vegas Motor Speedway will receive a second NASCAR Cup Series race.

A news conference has been called for Wednesday afternoon, at which officials from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, Las Vegas Motor Speedway and local government will attend. The news conference will follow a special meeting of the LVCA board of directors at Cashman Center.

NBC Sports reported Tuesday the road course at Charlotte Motor Speedway will be used for its fall playoff race in 2018, fueling speculation the playoff race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway would be sacrificed to accommodate Las Vegas.

Las Vegas Motor Speedway, along with those in Charlotte and New Hampshire, are owned by Speedway Motorsports, Inc. In recent years, the only way for a track to add a second Cup Series race has been to transfer an existing date from a sister property.

The new fall race will bookend the Kobalt 400 at the 1.5-mile Las Vegas oval, which will be run for the 20th time Sunday. 

Although attendance at NASCAR races has fallen off dramatically since LVMS first expressed interest in hosting a second race, the spring race has held steady in comparison to other NASCAR tracks and remains the most-attended one-day sporting event in Nevada.

NASCAR no longer releases attendance figures, but the LVCVA said in documents that the 2016 Cup Series race in Las Vegas attracted 96,400 out-of-town visitors resulting in a $139.2 million economic impact.

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