Las Vegas’ NASCAR Success Blessed By the Spirit of the Late Mel Larson
|
|
Las Vegas Motor Speedway seems one of the more successful
of NASCAR’s current Monster/Cup venues (with the caveat that this is being
written before the 2018 race), and at a time when the sport can use all the
bright spots it can get, that’s indeed a good thing. With the brothers Busch in
the top echelon of Cup drivers, the city also is well represented
competitively.
It should be no surprise, though, that I like to think of
elements of Vegas’ past, and at the head of that group is someone whose
contributions to the sport are largely forgotten outside of the Nevada desert:
the late Mel Larson.
Larson, who died late in 2016 at age 87, was part of the
group responsible for the creation of LVMS, along with Bill Bennett, his
long-time employer at Circus Circus Casino, Ralph Engelstad,
also a gaming giant, and Richie Clyne, considered the primary founder. Bennett
and Engelstad are also deceased. In 1998 the speedway
was sold to Bruton Smith and remains part of Speedway Motorsports.
But the speedway came at the end of Larson’s motorsports
career. When he was much younger, he had operated a drag strip in Phoenix, but
he soon came to Las Vegas and joined Bennett at Circus Circus, where he was a
marketing professional and executive for 20+ years. During that time, Larson
also was a race driver.
(His racing activity in Vegas wasn’t limited to the
speedway, either. Larson was long involved in drag racing there, as well as the
Mint 400 off-road race.)
Here’s Larson, at
left at the Mint 400. Having “Miss Mint 400” put her arm around is probably a
good way of keeping your heart beating when you’re getting up there.
Between 1955 and 1978 RacingReference.info records Larson
driving in 47 Grand National races, with his busiest seasons being 1957 (11
starts in a 53-race season) and 1973 (10 starts in 28 races). The earlier year
was his best, with one top-five and six top-ten finishes, including one of his
two career pole qualifying efforts.
On Sunday, March 3, at the old Concord (N.C.) Speedway,
Larson set a fast time of 62.225 mph on the half-mile dirt track.
Unfortunately, outside front-row starter Speedy Thompson beat Larson to the
flagstand to lead the first lap, and Larson ended up fourth, 11 laps behind
winner Jack Smith, Thompson’s teammate, in a Hugh Babb Chevy. Three Babb cars
and a factory Ford finished ahead of Larson.
During this period,
Larson apparently ran some Convertible Division races as well, although a
quick, very incomplete survey of records on my part found only a last-place
finish at Martinsville in 1957. Nevertheless, NASCAR thought enough of him to
use his car in some publicity shots, including the close-up above and the shot
below. In both, Larson is attired in a natty suit.
Larson’s best day at a Grand National track came in 1960,
when he claimed another pole, this time at Phoenix’s one-mile dirt Arizona
State Fairgrounds, led six laps, and finished second to Colorado’s John Rostek. Mel Larson may have not have been a full-time
racer, but he was serious and more than competent.
Phoenix was one of only four starts that year, and Larson
then took nearly a decade off, with his next GN appearance in 1970 at
Riverside’s road course. Other than his 10 starts in ‘73, he would run only
sporadically after that, with his last race coming at the end of the 1978
season at Ontario, Calif. By then he was 49, and racing had changed, making it
more and more difficult for a part-timer to be competitive; his ninth-place at
Riverside in 1970 had been his final top 10 finish.
The sad part about this brief retelling of Mel Larson’s
racing history is that it couldn’t happen today. There was a time when a
“gentleman” (or “gentlewoman”) driver - singer Marty Robbins was another -
could enter a race and run competitively, but that was before the charter
system and the virtually closed world of NASCAR today.
Remember that Phoenix fairgrounds race mentioned above?
Winner John Rostek was another case of what can no
longer happen. A Colorado short-track ace (see
johnrostekracingmemories.blogspot.com), he ran only five GN races that season
and one more three years later (he was a bit more active in USAC and ARCA
stocks) but came away with a victory. Any chance of a “who’s that?” car showing
up in a Monster/Cup garage today? Is that a good thing? I don’t think so.
Mel Larson at
Michigan in 1972, where he finished 17th in a Don Robertson team car to Jabe
Thomas. Note Larson’s sponsor, Astro Cycles, taped over Star City Body Shop. It
was the latter that was located in Roanoke, Va.
Frank’s Loose Lug Nuts
One of the reasons I think I can survive without
televised races these days - my wife and I “cut the cord” on cable/dish nearly
two years ago - is that I grew up with racing on the radio, so listening to MRN
while watching a leaderboard online suits me pretty well; anything interesting
will be available visually on YouTube later.
That thought came to me while writing this article
because, back when Larson was competing in the 1970s and I was listening to
races on Hank Schoolfield’s Universal Racing Network,
ever-the-good-PR-guy Mel would make sure to make himself available for an
interview on the air, even when he wasn’t racing that day. I guess these days
racers have those “opportunities” programmed in advance by their PR/marketing
people, but most of the time the content of their “sound bites” is so canned
that I can repeat it before it’s said. Mel Larson would never have stood for
such, and he was a pretty successful guy.
New Life for an Old Race Track?
In the sports car/road racing world, several tracks have
been repositioned over the years as “clubs” (like country clubs), and Virginia
International Raceway near Danville, the one with which I’m most familiar,
seems to have been quite successful. Now there’s an effort to do something kind
of similar with an oval.
Clearfield Speedway, also known at various times as
Central Pennsylvania Speedway or most recently CNB Bank Raceway Park, has been
purchased by UMI Performance, the manufacturer of high-end suspension products
(available through Summit Racing, JEGS and elsewhere), which is based in nearly
Philipsburg, Pa. UMI plans to use the facility for testing its products, but
also sees it being available for racing and possibly what it called “ride and
drive” events.
Clearfield is a nice facility that has the misfortune of
being located in a sparsely populated area - “out in the middle of nowhere”
might get complaints from local folks, but others might find the description
appropriate. It’s been around for a long time, but its existence was made more
difficult when a rival track was built about a mile away. That facility,
originally Hidden Valley Speedway but called several things since then, also
has struggled and has been closed for the past couple of years.
UMI had originally said it planned a “soft opening” for
the what it is calling UMI Motorsports Park with an autocross and cruise-in
event in August, but it has now scheduled a race for the late model Stock Car
Super Series on July 21.
With the road racing facilities, it seems to have helped
to have sources of income other than race-day receipts; maybe this new model
will bring UMI Motorsports Park back to life as well. We need all the active
tracks we can get, if we’re to attract new fans to (eventually) replace… well,
us. Should be interesting.