http://youtube.com/watch?v=
MR6tUS95U0M[/youtube]
The announcement we’ve been waiting months for is finally going to happen: The 2011 IndyCar season will end at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Yesterday morning, Las Vegas Review-Journal motorsports writer Jeff Wolf tweeted that a press conference tomorrow at Las Vegas’ City Center will announce IZOD IndyCar Series and Firestone Indy Lights races on Oct. 16 at the 1.5-mile oval. The NASCAR Camping World Truck Series will be the weekend’s undercard on Oct. 15.
One day later, INDYCAR has sent out an advisory for a press conference tomorrow at 11 p.m. PT in the City Center. Scheduled to attend are current IZOD IndyCar Series drivers Will Power and Ryan Briscoe of Team Penske, Marco Andretti and Ryan Hunter-Reay of Andretti Autosport, and Tony Kanaan of De Ferran Dragon Racing. Open-wheel legend Al Unser Jr. will also be at the conference according to the advisory.
For a while now, the season finale has been officially listed as TBA on the schedule while everybody else has mentally had Las Vegas in that slot — albeit, in pencil, not pen. There’s even been rumblings about a very unique doubleheader that would see a street race on Friday and then the season finale on the oval two days later. But it appears that we’ll have a standard IndyCar/NASCAR Trucks pairing for the mid-October weekend.
The IRL/IZOD IndyCar Series raced at LVMS from 1996-2000 and the track also hosted Champ Car World Series events in 2004 and 2005 (see above for that race) . Vegas also hosted a well-regarded CCWS street race in 2007 over by the downtown Fremont Street Experience.
