Bruton Smith's Texas track will have two Cup race weekends in 2005. Credit: Autostock

Notebook: Smith wants second date for Vegas

LAS VEGAS -- It's no secret that Bruton Smith wants a second Nextel Cup date at Las Vegas, and he's ready to spend the money to prepare for it.

Smith's Speedway Motorsports Inc. has approved a massive budget increase for Las Vegas Motor Speedway as they are inflating its 2006 budget from $30 million to $50 million.

Some of this money will go into increased seating. SMI is adding 14,000 seats for 2006, pushing capacity to nearly 140,000; the track also added seats last year.

Smith said he was angered by speculation that his company might consider moving a date from Atlanta Motor Speedway to his facility in Las Vegas.

With the new grandstand for 2006, Las Vegas' seating capacity will top Atlanta's, but Smith says he won't move a date. However, he would consider acquiring a date through the purchase of another track.

Smith had to employ that strategy in 1996, when he purchased North Wilkesboro to secure a date for Texas. He was granted a second date for Texas' track last year for 2005.

"[Atlanta's two dates] are very secure," Smith said. "That was a dirty, rotten rumor and I don't know who started it. No truth to it at all."

ISC-owned California Speedway held two Nextel Cup races for the first time in 2004, and its spring race in 2005 did not sell out.

Smith said Texas will sell out its two dates in 2005 at 155,000 tickets apiece.

"We will sell it out," Smith said. "Have no fear."

Vegas expansion to be named Richard Petty terrace

Richard Petty never ran a competitive lap at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, but by next spring's NASCAR weekend, fans will be sitting in the Richard Petty terrace.

Speedway officials announced on Sunday that LVMS will expand its capacity by at least 14,000 with an addition in the first turn. The current capacity is 122,000.

Chris Powell, the speedway's general manager, said naming the new structure for Petty was easy.

"There are only two seven-time NASCAR champions, and the addition of the Richard Petty Terrace gives out speedway grandstands named in honor of both of them."

The Dale Earnhardt terrace on turn four was competed last year.

R. Gordon blows another engine

Robby Gordon's luck ran sour in Las Vegas as motor gremlins struck for the third time in three races.

His motor went up in smoke on the 57th lap, sending him to the garage for the day.

"It never was very strong this weekend. Finally, it just quit," he said.

Gordon, who is fielding his own team this season, has had motor problems from the start. Using engines built by open-wheel expert John Menard, the program has yet to adjust to the changes required to build a NASCAR powerplant.

The engine the team brought to Daytona was illegal, and ultimately cost Gordon a spot in the season-opener. Then the motors blew up in California and in last week's Busch race in Mexico City.

"I know we've got a good little team here, but we've got to get this thing solved right away," he said.

Speed police nab only one at Vegas

NASCAR's crackdown on pit road speeds this year is keeping drivers more honest and more equal, according to the circuit's vice president of competition.

"It's been quite nice to see when we look at the numbers and the tower that everything is falling in within tenths of a mile an hour for pit road speed," Robin Pemberton said before Sunday's race.

The long arm of the speed gun nabbed just one driver on Sunday who exceeded the 35 mph speed limit at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. And like most people stopped for speeding, Kevin Harvick argued the call, which required him to pass through pit road at the proper speed.

"I was just going the same speed as everybody else," Harvick radioed his team. "You think their system is rigged?"

A crew member radioed back, "It's kind of like the fights, it depends on who you are."

Pemberton said, "If you go back over the course of the last recent few years, you know, there's certain people that always get busted for speeding."

"There's guys that never get busted. There's more of those. And they are very happy with the pit road speed because it's brought everything closer where pit road speed shouldn't enter into a position on the race track.

"Now it's down to the crews and the driver getting off the race track and accelerating out."

Waltrips raises $923,626 for Victory Junction Gang Camp

Michael and Buffy Waltrip presented a check for just under $1 million on Sunday to Kyle and Pattie Petty for their Victory Junction Gang Camp.

Waltrip said in July that he would gather $1 million for the camp, a summer home for chronically ill children.

The camp, dedicated to the memory of their son, Adam, who died in a crash in 2000, opened in June near their Randleman, N.C., home.

Waltrip promoted "Operation Marathon: Going the Distance for Kids" operation through marathons, dinners, concerts and autograph signings across the country, including a marathon here that he and Petty took part in.

"Michael was my inspiration to run," Petty said. "People flew out here to run ... with Michael."

Waltrip said the exact amount of the check, $923,626.73, was significant to him.

"It reflects the dollar-at-a-time way we raised the money," he said.