Las Vegas Motor Speedway

Has NASCAR taken over Las Vegas, or has Las Vegas taken over NASCAR? There will be 150,000 screaming fans shoehorned into Las Vegas Motor Speedway today for the UAW-Daimler Chrysler 400 Nextel Cup race, but for the last several days it seemed there were that many logo-covered NASCAR addicts in every casino along the Strip, lined up in the evenings around gambling tables and restaurants the way they lined up during the day along speedway fences to catch a glimpse of their favorite drivers.

Ralph Louis Engelstad, 72, a casino owner and entrepreneur in Las Vegas and later Mississippi, died Tuesday of lung cancer at his home in Las Vegas. Known best as the owner of the Imperial Palace Hotel in Las Vegas, Engelstad eventually branched out and built the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, which he later sold. He also developed another Imperial Palace in Biloxi, Miss. The grandson of Norwegian immigrants, Engelstad was born in Thief River Falls, Minn.

Anthony Lazzaro's season-ending Toyota Atlantic Series race this weekend in Houston will be icing on the cake for the Rancho Santa Margarita- based Arciero- Wells Racing team. Lazzaro clinched the series championship at the last race, in Laguna Seca, providing team owner Cal Wells III with his first open-wheel championship.

Speedway Motorsports Inc., an automobile racetrack operator, said it bought the Las Vegas Motor Speedway and nearby real estate for about $215 million in cash to expand its share of the market. The Concord, N.C.-based company didn't identify the parties selling the 1,300-acre racing facility or the 1.4 million square feet of warehouse space and 300 acres of nearby land. Speedway Motorsports said it intends to sell the additional real estate within 12 months.

Mark Martin came here 21 years ago from Batesville, Ark., a stripling of 18, to race a late model stock car at Craig Road Speedway, long since demolished but only a dogleg from where the $200-million Las Vegas Motor Speedway stands today. "This place is awesome, absolutely awesome," said Martin, who will start seventh in his Ford Taurus in today's Las Vegas 400, race No. 3 in the Winston Cup's 32-race series. "I can't imagine what a contrast from the way it was in 1977 and what's here today.

The Las Vegas 500K Indy car race today at Las Vegas Motor Speedway will offer an interesting contradiction in racing history. It will be both a beginning and an ending. The 500-kilometer race for Indy Racing League cars will inaugurate Richie Clyne's $200-million motor racing complex 10 miles north of downtown. The 1 1/2-mile superspeedway is nowhere near complete, as far as spectator amenities are concerned, but the racing surface has drawn rave reviews from drivers.

In a town noted for glitz, grandeur and ostentatiousness, what would you expect from a motorsports complex here? Glitz, grandeur and ostentatiousness. Richie Clyne, executive director of the Imperial Palace auto collection, is about to open his Las Vegas Motor Speedway and, he says, in keeping with the city's tradition, it will be bigger and grander than any other motor racing facility in the world. Anchored by a 1.