Speedway seats to get new rear gear

There are Jack Nicholson seats and Bob Uecker seats and now, at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, there will be Kim Kardashian seats.

In February, the celebutante most known for her TV reality shows, celebrity dalliances and gravity-defying posterior attended the NASCAR Sprint Cup race at LVMS, where she watched Mike Bliss crash the pink No. 36 Chevrolet with her picture and fragrance on the hood. There were reports, at least in the press room, that Bliss might have been rear-ended.

Although Kardashian's tush is more celebrated for being high than wide -- and it is doubtful that it got any closer to the grandstands than a hospitality suite with all the accoutrements -- LVMS has nonetheless announced it will widen bleacher seats from the industry standard of 18 inches to a more comfy 20 inches before next year's NASCAR weekend. The mottled seats in the sprawling Petty and Earnhardt terraces will not be affected.

With all respect due Ms. Kardashian's backside, this a coincidence of spectacular proportions.

"We hear things, we read the Internet, we read the message boards, we read the letters that people send in," LVMS president Chris Powell said. "Some of the complaints are that the seats are too narrow."

Powell would never say this, but I will: Walk the midway at LVMS on NASCAR weekend, or take a stroll around Neon Garage. Get a pair of giant Kyle Busch sunglasses and check out the junk in the trunks. I guarantee you will see many more Jimmy Spencer-sized posteriors than Joey Loganos. And then there are the men.

You should have seen the expression on my wife's face when I approached with a tape measure and asked her to define the width of my rear spoiler. At 6 feet 1 inch and 195 pounds, I am no longer as aerodynamic as I was in college. Powell, judging from across his desk, said I would make an average-sized NASCAR fan. The tale of the tape: 20 inches. I should put a Valvoline decal back there.

The standard width of a New York City subway car seat is 17.6 inches. This is why I take a taxi. The average width of a coach seat on an airplane is 17.2. This is why I prefer to fly with gymnasts.

Imagine your computer going down, and not being able to check in early for a Southwest flight. Imagine getting a boarding pass in the 90s -- the dreaded middle seat. Imagine Luther Vandross sitting in the window seat, with Kirstie Alley on the aisle. Now multiply that tight squeeze by about a bazillion, roughly the number of "middle seats" at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Pray that the person next to you didn't leave his Speed Stick in Kannapolis.

Powell said LVMS, which announced a virtual sellout for its Sprint Cup race in February although there were hundreds of empty seats, will lose fewer than 10,000 of its 131,000 or so permanent seats after the bleacher backs are renumbered. Fans who renew tickets and get displaced will be offered better seats in a nearby row or section.

"Instead of sitting in the middle of a row here, we'll put you on an aisle over there," Powell said, adding if a guy from South Bend, Ind., has been sitting next to a guy from Cedar City, Utah -- and they find they have something in common besides Donny and Marie -- LVMS will relocate them together.

Being a card-carrying conspiracy theorist, I would be remiss in not pointing out there may be slightly more to this than meets the eye. With attendance dropping at Sprint Cup races and a sluggish economy bump-drafting a lot of pocketbooks, I might consider getting into the fan comfort business, too, were I a track owner with empty seats, a television contract and an appreciation of public perception.

Put another way, when it comes to bottom lines, Kim Kardashian's is in much better shape than NASCAR's.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352.