WELL DONE; Champ Car opens its season with a solid Las Vegas event.(Motorsports)

Byline: STEVEN COLE SMITH

There's a rhinestoned Elvis impersonator on the podium and, in the paddock, a display for the Official Wedding Chapel of the Grand Prix. If the towering casinos around the downtown street circuit weren't enough to tell you this was Las Vegas, certainly that should.

It's Easter Sunday, and this is the Champ Car World Series Vegas Grand Prix, winding past venerable Las Vegas attractions such as the Fremont Experience, the Golden Nugget and the Plaza Hotel. A great many patrons of the Strip aren't aware there is anything interesting north of the Stratosphere except for some charismatic homeless people, preferring to stick with the Bellagio, Caesar's and Circus Circus down south. But this is downtown, old-school Las Vegas, where it all started, and the Grand Prix is trying to bring some attention to a part of Sin City that most sinners have abandoned.

And you know what? Everyone involved pulled it off. A remarkably good track, a decent starting lineup of cars and drivers, ideal weather and a cheerleading local media with not much else to cover on Easter weekend combined to make Champ Car's season kickoff a success.

Especially for Will Power, who moves from a nondescript sophomore driver with an amusing name to a race winner and an early candidate for season-long attention. Earning his first win, and only the ...