Las Vegas 400 Live Report by Bruce Bates

Well race fans, it was beautiful weather for the third installment of the Ford Domination Series also known as Winston Cup. Even though I have been to Vegas many times it was real nice to see the city all decked out in anticipation for the NASCAR races. Almost every casino had a welcome for race fans and the Caesar's Palace casino had the Rusty Wallace car in front so we could get a look at the Elvis paint job. Also while I had heard about wagering on the race before, it seemed all the casinos were offering some line or other betting. Derrike was a 40:1 shot at one of the casinos but I took him at a place where he was a field driver at 18:1 odds. They also had the opportunity to pick one of three drivers that you felt would finish the highest. I took Jarrett over the Labonte brothers but my bet went up in a puff of smoke midway through the race.

I didn't get into town until Sat. afternoon so I didn't see any of the practice or Busch Grand National race but I knew Derrike was starting ninth and heard the BGN race was pretty exciting so I had confidence that Sun. was going to be a good day. We left for the track pretty early and it was a good thing as the traffic to and from was not the best in the world. The facility on the other hand was beautiful. There isn't a bad thing to say about it.

Our seats were between the start/finish and turn 1 and high enough to see the entire track. Derrike's pit was in plain sight towards the pit road exit and the pre-race activities were awesome with Michael Buffer, the boxing/wrestling announcer, saying "Let's get ready to rumble." Wayne Newton was there. They had bands before and after the race and even some girls from one of the topless clubs performing a dance afterwards.

All of the souvenir trailers were there and even Derrike had one but not too much merchandise yet. I did break down and buy a hat and t-shirt though that had the #30 and Gumout on them. During the driver introductions I heard the guys behind me also cheer for DC and found that I was going to be surrounded by five other Cope fans. That was a very nice surprise. I booed Ernie Irvan for the benefit of the guy wearing the Skittles hat in front of me.

The race got started right around 12 noon and for the first few laps I grew confident as Derrike was able to stay around ninth position, but after listening on the scanner to him talking about how loose the car was it didn't surprise me to see him start falling towards the back of the field. I take it from what I heard that they expected cooler temperatures like they had on Sat. and had put some spring rubbers into the rear. On the first pit stop they didn't want to take the time to remove them so they used air pressure and said they would take out the rubbers under caution.

The racing was pretty good at the first part of the race. Unfortunately the only thing us Cope fans talked about was whether Derrike was 1 or 2 laps down. Throughout the day Derrike and the crew discussed that they had made a mistake on the setup and they would just have to try to get all they could from the day. There wasn't too much conversation from him except for calls from the spotter during the day that I could hear, but there was some pretty excited calls among the other drivers especially Kenny Wallace until his engine blew. He was pretty excited in his car since it was running well.

The racing at the end was rather boring as Mark Martin outclassed the field in a day that saw mostly just Ford Taurus's with top ten finishes. All in all it was a wonderful day although I would have preferred to see Derrike finish better. I guess they just figured wrong on the setup and didn't have the advantage of many cautions to adjust on the car before falling too far back. Many other cars had the same situation.

I can't wait for the next race at Las Vegas though as I have never watched a race in as fine a facility, even California Speedway which is also top rate. See you all again later in the year from Fontana, CA and I will hopefully have news on a new Derrike Cope fan we are expecting at the end of this month.