This is the Friends of History Debating Society. I'm John Batchel. Jeff Bliss is Pacific Watch.

Vegas Report. When last Jeff reported, Formula One was prepared to dominate the story for a weekend.

Now the results. Jeff, pit boss Bliss, you drove the track, You watched the track. You've got all the statistics.

I'm presuming it's a success. Everything in Las Vegas these days has been coming up, what is it,

sevens. However, what kind of success? Good evening to you, Jeff.

Good evening, John. Well, once again, it appears to be an economic success.

They're estimating that the event, the weekend event, and all the things that led up to it brought in more than $1.5 billion.

That's the economic impact.

And they're also saying they think they raked in about $77 million worth of tax revenues on this event.

So a lot of people are very happy with it.

Of course, some of the folks who live and work there who try to get along with traffic

and having a race course cut through their normal commute route and things like that,

they're never so happy, they're never very happy

with it. But if you ask a lot of the hotels and a lot of the concessionaires and vendors and

others who make money from people coming to Vegas for gambling and fun and hotel rooms and such,

they're very happy with it. They're glad that they've got a 10-year, and then it looks like there's going to be more of

commitment from Formula One and Vegas to each other.

Last year, as I recall, the first year was last year. The championship had already been decided by the time they got to Las Vegas,

so it wasn't competitive. Did that change?

It did.

They slid the race back in the schedule, you know, more towards the middle, so it would have more weight and it would draw more viewers and perhaps more people to the race itself.

And it did help, but like, just like last year, the results for Formula One's overall points standing were the same as it had been the previous three years.

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