Las Vegas Motor Speedway (LVMS) has been a stage for some of NASCAR’s wildest moments since its first Cup Series race in 1998, when Mark Martin took the checkered flag alongside showgirls. Over the years, it’s seen tight finishes like Jimmie Johnson’s 0.045-second win over Matt Kenseth in 2006 and fiery drama like Kyle Busch and Joey Logano’s pit-road brawl in 2017. Local hero Kyle Busch grabbed his first Cup win there in 2009, while Brad Keselowski snatched victory from a fuel-starved Dale Earnhardt Jr. in 2014.
From Martin Truex Jr.’s 2017 dominance en route to a title to Kyle Larson’s 2021 Hendrick Motorsports breakthrough, LVMS has been a proving ground. Now, as Chris Powell retires after over 26 years as president, his tenure’s bold moves like the Neon Garage and track re-banking take center stage.
Chris Powell isn’t passing smooth remarks for Tony Stewart as he bows out of his role
Powell’s exit after the spring Cup weekend in 2025 marks the end of a transformative era. Since Speedway Motorsports bought LVMS in 1998, he’s been the steady hand, turning it into a NASCAR powerhouse. Powell didn’t just manage LVMS, he remade it. As he readies his RV for a sunset drive post-race, a raw exchange with Stewart, with deep dirt racing roots, captures the push and pull of his time in charge.
Chris Powell while interacting after the race said, “I love Tony, I love Tony, but when we built this Neon Garage, Tony was not in a good frame of mind that weekend. Moments later, he’s out in the driver’s meeting, I mean the pre-race introductions, and he hops off the stage, he gets in the back of the pickup truck, and Alan Bestwick, I think was one with him, and he said, Tony, how you feeling today, what do you think about today’s race? He said, I don’t know what Chris Powell was thinking about building this garage out here the way he did, and now he’s re-banked the track, and I had nothing to do with this part, now he’s re-banked the track, we had a great racetrack, and now we went from 12 degrees where we could really race, and now it’s 20 degrees. Now the fans liked the 20 degrees, but Tony didn’t.”
In 2007, Powell launched the Neon Garage, letting fans get close to the pit action. It was a slam dunk as crowds loved the vibe, and it redefined race-day access. In fact, it was one of the biggest changes Powell had brought. Fans could get up close and personal with the action. One can understand Stewart’s perspective from 2007, especially since he was notorious for his reluctance to engage with fans.
Recently he even explained his reasoning behind it. “There’s not a driver in NASCAR that would stay in the ropes for an hour and sign autographs. Because you have so many things that you have to do and you know, my debrief with the crew chief, there’s not a lot of information for me to do right now and tell I get dialed in a little more with the race car.” Ironically, it’s what Stewart feels is what is lacking in the sport. “I think to support the NASCAR fans it’s really hard at a NASCAR track because you want to see your drivers it’s not great access to the drivers now, you know, garage passes really don’t mean much anymore because they’re not driving in and out and having practice.”
Perhaps in retrospect, Stewart would have been a supporter of the Neon Garage, because that’s what it aimed to do: unfiltered access to drivers. In Powell’s own words from a recent interview, “Our Neon Garage is something that we take a lot of pride in here, because you can’t get that kind of access to the teams and drivers and cars at other speedways the way you can here.”
Then came the changes to the track, re-banking the turns from 12 degrees to 20 for faster, wilder races. Fans ate it up, flocking to see the chaos, and LVMS became a Vegas must-see. The idea was taken from Homestead-Miami’s changes. The banking change and subsequent approval from fans was something Powell wanted to emulate.
And while Powell was kind about Stewart’s words, Smoke hadn’t held back if we go and hear what he said in the instance Powell was talking about. “I think they screwed up a really nice racetrack. It’s going to make for a worse race in my opinion. Now, I could be wrong, but from what I saw in the test, it’s not going to be a very fun race. I don’t think you can find anybody who really, truly likes what they did to the track. It was a unique and fun racetrack. Now it’s just another mile and a half-track.”
But not everyone was sold, especially Stewart, whose heart lies with tracks like Eldora Speedway, the dirt oval he’s owned since 2004. Interestingly, with 24-degree banking in the corners and 8 degrees on the straights, the track’s banking dimensions are quite similar to LVMS, and Smoke loved Eldora. He even brought NASCAR’s Truck Series there from 2013 to 2019, proving dirt could shine on a big stage. So when Powell changed LVMS, Stewart let him have it.
As Powell rolls out, his mark on LVMS is clear. The Neon Garage, the banking—it’s his doing, a legacy fans adored. Stewart might distance, loyal to Eldora’s rugged charm, but Powell built something Vegas embraced. And his impact has been clear. Under his tenure, LVMS was named Speedway Motorsports Speedway of the Year thirteen times, most recently in 2024.
And while Stewart wasn’t happy about the banking, Smoke might just smile after seeing the difference Powell has brought to drag-racing. Powell expanded The Strip at LVMS, turning it into one of the biggest drag racing tracks.
Powell picks out the reasons for NASCAR’s downturn
It’s hard to admit it, but parts of NASCAR are struggling indeed, and the lower viewership counts are evidence enough. As Powell exits NASCAR, he thinks he has the reason for why the sport is on its way to a spiral.
“At the same time, you started to have an inordinate number of very, very popular drivers retiring. You had Jeff Gordon, Mark Martin, Rusty Wallace, Tony Stewart, Dale Jarrett — and not just the highest-profile drivers, but guys like Sterling Marlin had a tremendous following themselves. Those guys were blue-collar, helped picked themselves up off the ground from being youngsters and made something of themselves — and NASCAR fans appreciated that and loved it,” he explained.
He wants to see more personalities being built up in the sport, not just names jumping straight into the top flight. “As the newer drivers came along, they were younger and perhaps hadn’t proved themselves as much in the lower ranks as (Dale) Earnhardt and some of those other guys had done when they were coming along. You had guys being thrust into top-flight rides who were not exactly household names and there were differences in those personalities. The fans at that time were just not as emotionally connected when we lost those key drivers.”
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