Cool cars, celebrities, cuisine and international intrigue around every turn, hairpin
curve and chicane.
Sparing the customary Las Vegas gambling cliches, Glitter Gulch is a race track around The Sphere and down The Strip during each November’s F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix.
It is impossible to be everywhere and see everything going on that week – all of the ancillary activations and attempts to monetize and maximize the corporate spending and high-end, worldwide visitors who roll in to see the racecars, which are more like spacecrafts, roll down the road.
But I tried.
And after 24-hour-long days and nights of the dreamy setting, it took two days of sleeping, with visions of Vegas sugarplums dancing in my head, to recharge my physical batteries!
Buckle up and let me drive you through it, in this article, via photos and diary notes.
This Way In…
A relatively new casino hotel, Tuscany Suites and Casino, served as the media headquarters for the Las Vegas Grand Prix.
While covering a city through which a race track runs is a logistical challenge in terms of both size and accessibility and the Tuscany Suites and Casino was “next to” the Paddock area, press conference venues, and garages where most media scrums and interviews took place, and the F1 media operation also ran shuttle buses to various parts of the track.
The paddock area includes the entrances to the race team garages, the ESPN television set, and the administrative offices for each team. The very nature of the champagne sport means that, amidst it all, VIPs such as New York Yankee pitcher Gerrit Cole and team types mingle and consume everything from Girl Scout cookies to cocktails.
Team reps munch complimentary In-N-Out burgers beside pole-performing acrobats. All this while the entrances of the drivers – and chef Gordon Ramsey – resemble a Hollywood red carpet with iconic Vegas showgirls and Elvis impersonators awaiting them for promotional photographs.
2024 defending race winner George Russell seemed so taken by the welcoming scene that he stopped and took a photo of it all with his own phone!
High above, the suite swells with luxury passes to the Paddock Club, peering down for glimpses of the elusive, knighted, Sir Lewis Hamilton (who sped through the crowd faster than he did on the track, and his Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc, from Monaco, and his art historian fiancée Alexandra Saint Mleux, who pranced in like the horse logo in a leather Ferrari-logoed skirt and jacket perfectly fitted to her elegant personage.
The spectators spotted the team officials and owners sharing a space with piles of tires, roaming members of the Blue Man Group, Mickey and Minnie Mouse, and media types from up in the Paddock Club, that is, in between bites of gourmet cotton candy; Heineken on draft; champagne fountains; and any libation they could imagine.
The Paddock Club is essentially a giant, permanent luxury viewing, dining and drinking facility overlooking the race’s start/finish line and pit areas. It is also home to an extensive year-round, F1 Plaza interactive museum with both race simulators, a 4-D movie and fancy go-carts, which allow tourists to race on the actual F1 track.
In reality, even on race days up until a certain point, anyone can drive “on the track,”
because the track is on city streets. I drove down The Strip, in my beat-up Chevy Blazer, right down the same straightaway the F1 cars would be later that day.
The barriers, with the advertising, and fences and lights are all up, so you get the same view from behind your wheel as the F1 drivers do as they pass the iconic casinos and lighted signs. For fun, I weaved the car and passed two other passenger cars as if I was in the race!
F1 Arcade, Activations, and Shops
I spied a view of the racing one night from a party Pirelli Tires threw at Alle Lounge on 66, a Gatsby-inspired bar and sky casino atop Resorts World Casino Hotel.
With a cigar gifted to me from a tire retailer from Northern California named “Sonny” (his real name was “Clyde”) in one hand and a Hemingway martini given to me by race fan Tony Cuthbert in the other, I learned you can, in fact, hear F1 race cars from 66 stories over and five blocks away from The Strip.
Far below, in a Resorts World outdoor space, a celebration of auto racing called Fan Prix…featuring driver Romain Grosjean and the Dream to Drive, took place over two days.
It offered fans a chance to see vintage and classic cars, drive simulators, enjoy other interactive race exhibits and speeches. The event welcomed community members without race tickets to get a taste of the action.
Down the street, the new F1 Arcade, which sits at the top rim of the Forum Shops at Caesars with an outdoor balcony overlooking The Strip, was full of fans racing against each other on their realistic race simulators and watching the racing on the countless colorful televisions.
F1 Arcade is a permanent, sprawling, and stylish 21,000-square-foot bar, restaurant, and event space for those who love racing throughout the year.
Below, in an event space, I spied hundreds of race fans in a festival atmosphere outside Caesars, with a DJ and bars, catching glimpses of The Strip. And across the street in the shops between The Venetian and Palazzo, the official F1 Shop was so popular, it had a line of people queuing to get in…and then a line of people waiting to pay for their sometimes personalized apparel, merchandise and souvenirs.
“Have You Driven a Ford Lately?”
Back at the paddock, my meeting with Ford was “job one,” as their commercials used to say. It was in the Red Bull hospitality offices at the paddock that I interviewed an incoming automotive executive who was, to coin a baseball phrase, in the “on-deck circle.”
After three years of development, beginning in 2026, Ford Motor Company, for instance, will have a presence in F1 racing. Amidst the wild whine of the F1 cars circling the Las Vegas street racecourse, I managed to talk with Mark Rushbrook, Global Director of Racing for the Dearborn-based automaker, himself a racer, as is Ford’s CEO Jim Farley.
“We cannot wait to go racing and win races with our new F1 partner Red Bull. The partnership allows us to focus on where we can truly contribute and innovate technically and learn to make our road cars and trucks even better,” said Rushbrook. “Red Bull is such a
powerhouse in media with the story they’re able to tell and the eyeballs they’re able to attract, but they also see the value Ford is as a brand, especially in the United States.”
Rushbrook and Ford want us all to buckle up as they take us along for the ride. “We use the spectacle of racing to engage fans. There is a direct tie from what we do on the race track, and the passion that we put into Ford products, that customers want to put in their garage or driveway.”
It is not just a repeat of the rivalry depicted in the film “Ford vs. Ferrari.”
“Everywhere we race, Barcelona, Melbourne…we want to go against the best manufacturers in the world. We do that in sports car racing today against Ferrari and many other great manufacturers. But here in Formula one, of course, Ferrari is a force to be reckoned with, but there are a lot of other great manufacturers here as well, and we’re just excited to be rejoining the Formula one grade,” Rushbrook insisted.
As for a USA rival, Cadillac, from Detroit-based General Motors, is also joining F1 racing with a team in 2026.
“We simply do not want to be on the track just to be on the track. We want to be on the track with the intention to win. We know the magnitude of this challenge in all these different global series, but especially Formula 1 is a massive challenge,” Rushbrook admitted.
“It started from nothing, it started. From scratch three and a half years ago, so a lot of pressure to deliver. At Ford, we are leaning into our heritage, our roots. Henry Ford won a race in 1901 and started the company. We’ve been racing for more than a century.”
Rushbrook said he absolutely loves racing and has enjoyed racing a lot of different cars for 30 years. He’s raced with his own son and with his CEO, Ford’s Jim Farley.
“He’s a car guy, he’s a racer, but he’s also an incredible leader, business leader, visionary, and marketing expert with everything that he’s done in his career. So, I believe that we’re using racing for the right reasons in a very responsible way to help the company.”
Ford is headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan. But with the Formula 1 involvement, Rushbrook will be traveling far and wide to Monaco, Abu Dhabi, and beyond.
“I moved to Michigan in 1989 for grad school and to be in the auto industry and have stayed in Michigan ever since. I absolutely love living there. It is a great state to live in.”
More Michiganders
With the cars speeding by, over near the McLaren garage, I ran into the co-founders of LightSpeed: Grand Ledge’s Tim Lebel and Jason Schreiber. Lebel said he recently bought the all-electric, black Cadillac Escalade IQ.
“It’s got a humungous battery. I have owned a Tesla and a Rivian and the Escalade battery is twice as big. But I can plug it in at home overnight, and if I am on the road, it charges in about 45 minutes,” Lebel said.
We could still hear the F1 cars screaming by during their practice laps, so I asked Lebel what would happen if one day those open-wheel race cars were all-electric?
“You’ve got to believe it is coming, right? But it won’t be the same,” he admitted.
Then came another confession. “My Escalade IQ is fantastic, and I love it, but my dream car is a McLaren. That would be cool,” he admitted.
Lansing’s Paul Gentilozzi, who spent 50 years in the race industry as a driver and team owner, also told me of his dream ride: “The 333 Ferrari SP built by Dallara. It was a car that didn’t make noise – it made music. It was the most wonderful sound as the open-cockpit car went about 220 mph with its ’12-cylinder Formula 1 engine and 180-degree crankshaft.”
Downtown Las Vegas at The D
Gentilozzi, also a commercial developer, is an MSU alum like Chris Sotiropoulos, a Michigander who also planted a popular flag in Las Vegas.
He manages a 24-hour American Coney Island – a downtown Detroit hot dog institution – in a Freemont Street hotel downtown called “The D.” The hotel was founded by Derek Stevens, the son of a Detroit auto parts manufacturer, who, as a developer, invested heavily in Las Vegas.
The name “The D” refers to his nickname, but also seems to be, like his hotel, in homage to Detroit. Thus the American Coney Island, according to Sotiropoulos.
“Derek Stevens walked into American Coney Island in Detroit and introduced himself to my sister Grace Keros.” (Keros, American Coney Island’s owner, is a class of ’83 Okemos High School alum). Stevens told her, ‘I love this place! It’s a staple. My dad brought me here and I bring my kids here. Uh…we are doing this thing in Las Vegas…and I would love you to be a part of it…’”
“This thing” turned out to be The D, his 34-story, 629-room casino hotel, at which guests
from Michigan feel especially at home. Why?
Because Stevens similarly wooed Joe Vicari to bring one of his Andiamo Restaurants from their Detroit suburban sprawl into “The D.”
And the D’s lobby barista brews Ann Arbor-based Zingerman’s coffee. Bar Canada, on The D casino’s second level, serves up hockey on television with icy, north-of-the-border suds such as Sleeman and Labatt Blue, which are more likely to be found in Windsor on the Detroit River than in the desert. (Arriving guests are well-watered when checking in: along with their room key comes a complimentary cup of draft Molson Canadian, drawn from a keg tapped behind the reception desk!)
The D’s adjacent concierge desk is backed by a mural of East Lansing, where Sotiropoulos went to school at Michigan State University – Stevens’ rival, as he attended the University of Michigan. “But Derek supports all things from Michigan,” Sotiropoulos explained.
Family Business Turns Out Titans
Like Stevens, Sotiropoulos was raised in a family business that eventually required his return.
“I grew up in the restaurant industry, so as a kid, I missed Saturdays. I was nine years old, and I was busting tables and serving coffee all day; I didn’t get to watch cartoons. As an undergrad, I worked in restaurants,” he revealed.
Then came the travel.
“I had a great job working for the Saudi royal family in the Middle East. I was an outsider,
but they treated me very well. I had some days in the supply chain field, and then I was going to take a job in New Jersey as a VP at Toys R’ Us – but this Las Vegas project happened.
Now Sotiropoulos travels back and forth from Vegas to Michigan – his home is in Northville – and he bounces between duties at The D and Circa, Stevens’ other downtown Las Vegas mega casino hotel, where he manages the massive Stadium Swim and Victory Burger &
Wings.
“With Stadium Swim, just like any other day club, you see people on vacation: four
thousand plus people all hanging out in different pools and drinking and eating and just having the time of their lives,” Sotiropoulos said.
He sees his fair share of celebrities at the various properties.
“A lot of people come incognito. We don’t even see them and the next thing we know, we see a social media post that they were here,” Sotiropoulos explained, citing F1 driver Lewis Hamilton and Dana White are examples.
The walls in American Coney Island also depict stars dining on dogs…in Vegas, at any hour of the night or day.
“You know, it’s one of those things. America pretty much runs on hot dogs and beer, so we got you covered.”
Decidedly NOT Hot Dogs and Beer
While some of Ferrari’s guests were headquartered at The Wynn casino hotel, Ferrari’s restaurant, Cavallino, had moved the magic of its Michelin-starred chefs Riccardo Forpani and Virginia Cattaneo, cooks and staff from Ferrari headquarters in Maranello, Italy, to MGM’s Bellagio Casino Hotel in Las Vegas for race week.
Cavallino, featuring the impossibly colorful cuisine of Chef Massimo Bottura, is the gourmet restaurant in what was once Enzo Ferrari’s executive dining room across from the historical entrance to the factory of the car company he founded.
Cavallino, and its menu, occupied what is usually Bellagio’s Le Cirque. My server, Martin J. Fischer, has worked with Le Cirque and MGM for nearly two decades, and was delighted to welcome the Italian takeover – even wearing a lapel pin bearing the Ferrari “prancing horse” logo.
The menu? Cavallino Icons: (which must be seen and tasted to be believed) Crème Caramel, al Parmigiano Reggiano, Vitello Tonnato, Scrigno di Tortellini, Filetto Purosangue and Zuppa Inglese.
The ingredients? To name a few: 36-month aged Parmigiano Reggiano and Villa Manodori Traditional Balsamic Vinegar from their birthplaces, like Ferrari, in Italy’s food valley of Emilia-Romagna Region. Calvisius Oscietra caviar; potato foam with hibiscus; alchermes reduction, marinated beetroot…the list goes on.
I was thrilled to be taken into the kitchen for a few precious seconds to meet – and compliment – Chef Cattaneo and ask her to send my regards to Chef Bottura back in Modena.
Forza Ferrari!
Read more of Michael Patrick’s work at The Travel Tattler and contact him at
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