Las Vegas is Home

The Las Vegas Motor Speedway is going to be hustle and bustle this weekend with the UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 slated for this Sunday, March 11th. It seems some people are questioning if it’s going to be a weekend like it was for the NBA Finals with 160,000 thousand race fans in town.

Several reports from that weekend focused not on the game itself but the chaotic atmosphere surrounding it — interminable flight delays at McCarran International Airport, standstill traffic on Las Vegas Boulevard, and a sense of lawlessness on parts of the city’s prime tourist area, The Strip. “Vegas screwed up,” wrote ESPN columnist Bill Simmons, who took the city to task for not putting enough police on the streets.

Columnist Jason Whitlock of AOL.com agreed, calling All-Star weekend “an unmitigated failure.” The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported 403 arrests over the long weekend, with 231 of those arrested coming from outside Southern Nevada, and 239 for prostitution-related crimes. And now here comes NASCAR, which according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority brought 94,875 people and a non-gaming economic impact of $129.3 million to town last year.

[tags]las vegas, nascar, DaimlerChrysler 400[/tags]