Is The Strip At LVMS Going To Four Lanes?

Is The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway finally going to be converted to a four-lane drag strip? If the latest rumor — just one in a long line of rumors surrounding the potential addition at the LVMS facility — hold true, there could be four-wide nitro racing in the desert very soon.

Now, you might be saying, “meh, it’s just another rumor”, but this time, you must consider the source. And just who might that source be? One O. Bruton Smith, the Chairman of Speedway Motorsports Inc. that operates The Strip, along with the zMax Dragway, Bristol Dragway, and Sonoma Raceway, along with several NASCAR facilities. In other words, if an SMI track is going to undergo major changes, this is the guy that it’s going to invision it and give it the stamp of approval.

Smith, long a proponent of professional drag racing, was a guest on the SiriusXM NASCAR Radio show recently, where during his interview, he mentioned that he has plans to add a second set of lanes to The Strip, thereby creating a sister track to the one-of-a-kind zMax Dragway in Charlotte.

If Smith indeed moves forward with his intentions, it will, interestingly, come at a time when attendance at NHRA national events is on a clear decline. Adding to that, spectator attendance at the NHRA Four Wide Nationals has never quite taken off as was initially expected, but perhaps Mr. Smith knows something that we don’t about the potential rewards of his investment at LVMS.

Since it’s construction, the story has remained that Speedway Motorsports designed The Strip with the intent of eventually converting it to four lanes, and if the plan comes to fruition, doing so would likely have minimal effect on the current racing operations.

Dragzine has reached out to LVMS personnel for confirmation of their plans, and we hope to have more on this story when it becomes available.