Smith considering moving Charlotte race to Las Vegas
Charlotte Motor Speedway owner Bruton Smith is considering moving the October race from
Charlotte to Las Vegas Motor Speedway, according to multiple reports.
Because he's chairman of Speedway Motorsports Inc., Smith can ask NASCAR to move a race from one of his tracks to another one of his tracks.
Smith said "there is a 70 percent chance" that he'll request to move the October race in to Las Vegas. SMI owns eight tracks that have Sprint Cup points races -- Atlanta, Bristol, Charlotte, Kentucky, Las Vegas, New Hampshire, Sonoma and Texas.
No official request has been made.
"Tracks have the ability to request realignment," NASCAR Senior Vice President of Operations Steve O'Donnell said in a statement. "We review and always decide based on the best interest of the entire sport of NASCAR. We're beginning the 2014 process now and have not had any formal requests to realign."
Smith said Las Vegas official have offered incentives.
"Someone once said, 'Follow the money,'" Smith told television station WBTV on Monday. "Well, if we do this, we will be following the money because, here again, there's a lot of money in Las Vegas. "And if it gets to be strong enough, I imagine we might do something like that."
Smith remarks came as he sues local civic leaders in the North Carolina Court of Appeals for more than $80 million in incentives he feels he's owed. In 2007, he and Cabarrus (N.C.) County officials agreed to a deal where SMI would help fund infrastructure improvements that would be repaid through state contributions and tax incentives.
