8 replies to this topic

[Buford]

I asked this in another thread but it was kind of buried and I got no response so I will bring it to the top. Does anybody know where the Las Vegas Stardust road course was located in the 1960's? I seem to recall it was out in the desert west of the Strip. Well that area is not no man's land anymore. In fact, I am living there and was wondering if I might be living on the site.

[Gerr]

Buford, this link shows a map with Stardust bordered by Flamingo Road to the north, Piedmont to the west, Rainbow to the east and Tropicana Avenue to the south.
http://www.silhouet....s/stardust.html
Are you close?

[Buford]

Thanks Gerr. That is exactly what I wanted to know. Looks like I just missed it. I am right next to Desert Inn which is the first road north of Flamingo about 1/2 mile. Rainbow is about 1/2 mile east.

So I am about 1/2 mile North and 1/2 mile West of the location.

[Allen Brown]

What's there now?

Allen

[Buford]

Originally posted by Allen Brown
What's there now?

Allen

Las Vegas has been the fastest growing city in the USA every year since at least 1990. The original Las Vegas was around the downtown area and to the North. Then the "Las Vegas Strip" grew. That is the area you see most of the massive hotels and is about 3 miles long, a couple miles south of the downtown area. The track was directly west of "The Strip" and Rainbow which the map shows was the east boundary is about 4 miles from Las Vegas Blvd ("The Strip). At that time (the 1960s) the area where the track was built to the west of the Strip was wasteland desert. In fact, I am surprised to see the streets were already in. There was nothing out that way except some gravel quarries, a couple of which are still there and civilization has grown out to them and surrounded them.

The same was true of the area east of the Strip. Nothing but desert. The area east of the Strip grew first, being near the airport. In the 1990s it has been the area west of the strip where the development has been and that is where the track was. It is the new “affluent prestigious area”. Today, the entire desert area west of the Strip where the track was, and all the way to the mountains is nearly filled with houses, shopping centers, parks, industrial areas, etc. All new stuff. My house was finished in July 2000. Everything that is on the ground the track was on, has been built up in the past 5 to 10 years. Rainbow is now a main thoroughfare with the usual stores, super markets, Starbucks etc.

With both the areas west of the Strip and east of the Strip nearing full development all the way to the mountain ranges on each side, Las Vegas is once again expanding north, and for the first time now, also south. The new Las Vegas Speedway is to the northwest of downtown near Nellis Air Force base. That area is now seeing development as more and more people flee the high taxes and politics of their home states and move to the oasis in the desert. By the end of the century, everybody in the United States will be living in Las Vegas.

[Jim Thurman]

Originally posted by Buford
I asked this in another thread but it was kind of buried and I got no response so I will bring it to the top. Does anybody know where the Las Vegas Stardust road course was located in the 1960's? I seem to recall it was out in the desert west of the Strip. Well that area is not no man's land anymore. In fact, I am living there and was wondering if I might be living on the site.

Sorry Buford...I would have gotten to it had I been able to yesterday.

In August of 1975, I was in the area. It was a brand new housing tract and without ever being at Stardust, and only seeing one map of where it was located (and not remembering that!) I thought it very possible the housing tract was right on top of the old track site. Either that or a smaller, new tract just to the East. I knew that the track had to have been around there somewhere. Little did I realize how close I was. Turns out just a long two or three blocks to the West of where I was standing were the remains of the track...which I just recently found out through maps, had a good portion of pavement remaining (the South end of the track was gone, but that was all).

So, I was that close and didn't know!...and did not know how much of it was left. And it also answers the question that virtually all of (if not all of) the site is now covered by houses as a lot more have been added to the West and North of where I stood in August of 1975.

On a side note, the Stardust Hotel was purchased by a new ownership group in 1969 and they weren't interested in the track, so closed it. I understand the drag strip was used through 1970, but the last race of the road course was in an SCCA Regional race in the Spring of 1969. There had been some flooding, and it supposedly damaged the course (which could easily have happened), but basically the new hotel/casino ownership weren't interested in the facility.

A writer in Autoweek commented that the hotels wanted to keep people in the casinos and gambling, so why would they want them to be five miles away out in the desert watching cars race?


Jim Thurman

[Buford]

Well actually then in 1975 they were already building there. Funny it took them another 25 years to build my area just a half mile away.

[Jim Thurman]

Originally posted by Buford
Well actually then in 1975 they were already building there. Funny it took them another 25 years to build my area just a half mile away.

Buford, this was the true definition of "patchwork development". There was an industrial area about 1/2 mile West of the Strip. Then it was under I-15 and practically nothing along Spring Mountain until a 7-11 at the corner of Rainbow. There was one small, newly opened tract at that corner and then it was another mile or two South through nothing. The tract I was at was pretty good sized and there was one more smaller tract about 1/4 of a mile to the East from Rainbow...across another vacant patch of desert.

As I wrote before, I knew I was very close to where Stardust International Raceway had been, but I didn't know *how* close!...and wasn't aware that the housing tract was basically in back (to the East) and little did I know the track was still sitting there (damn!).

Hopefully, the following link will work to a circa 1983 topographical map

 

EDIT: link removed, no longer works



Jim Thurman

Edited by Jim Thurman, 13 May 2021 - 20:32.

[Buford]

Very interesting. Thanks Jim. Yeah, I am real close to Desert Inn and Buffalo. Buffalo is the first North-South street West of Rainbow. Spring Mountain is the first East-West street to the South from Desert Inn and before the next one, Flamingo. The corner of Spring Mountain and Buffalo is where the quarry is. Everything is all built around the quarry now.

I looked last night. The corner of Rainbow and Tropicana which apparently was the Southwest corner of the track has a small shopping center mini mall thing. Then driving north along rainbow to the left (west) where the track was is all houses now. All the way north up to Flamingo is residential until you get to the corner, which has businesses. So where the track was located is now totally filled up with houses except for the two corners which have gas stations and small mini malls. From there north on Rainbow is all business development, grocery stores, fast food, resturants etc.