48 menshealth.com.au
A
TRAVELGETTING THERE
United Airlines flies
to Vegas via LA and
San Francisco from
most Australian capitals.
united.com
WIN CITY
Want to survive a boys’ weekend in
Vegas with your dough and dignity
intact? MH’s David Ashford ditched
blackjack and showgirls for athletic
excess on a 72-hour sporting bingeFRIDAY 15:30 SPEEDVEGAS Track
With time scarce, I need to shake off my
jet lag fast. At 225km/h to be precise,
in a canary yellow Ferrari 258 Italia
that somehow manages to stick to the
bitumen as my calmly sadistic driver,
Tony, repeatedly takes us to the brink of
disaster on turn after hair-raising turn.
Tony had told me to give him a thumbs
up or down and he’d adjust his speed
accordingly. With the needle nudging
the limit thumbs up certainly isn’t the
sane option but I boldly resist the urge
to slow him down.
Afterwards, Tony is mildly
impressed that I didn’t “scream like
this big bodybuilder guy we had in last
week” but assures me the car had more
in it if I’d requested it.
A rev-head’s paradise, SpeedVegas
is stocked with a range of sleek car
porn you can take for a spin around the
circuit. I thought I’d be better off in
the safe hands of a guy who once went
around it 250 times in a day. Maybe that
was a mistake.FRIDAY 19:00 Vegas Golden Knights
V Ottawa Senators, T-Mobile Arena
Officially jetlag-free I head to the
gleaming copper colosseum that is the
T-Mobile A rena, just off the Strip. It’s
home to Vegas’ newest and brightest
sporting franchise, the Golden
Knights. A scorched city in the middle
of the Nevada desert and an ice hockey
team seem an unlikely marriage
but with the Golden Knights sitting
proudly on top of their division in their
first season in the NHL, the locals have
clearly fallen for them. VGK apparel is
everywhere in the fan-friendly precinct
alongside the arena. Vegas is already
proving a popular destination for fans
of visiting teams and tonight the crowdis full of Canadians escaping the late
winter chill. The Ottawa Senators
shock the hosts in a 5-4 thriller but the
locals, perhaps happy just to have a
team, don’t seem too disappointed. In
2020 they’ll get their own NFL team
when the Raiders relocate here.SATURDAY 11:00 - Rugby Sevens,
Sam Boyd Stadium
Next, I’m off to watch an even more
unlikely contest. Rugby Sevens has
hit town and the Las Vegas version
has been getting bigger every year.
Unfortunately, the weather is also in
rare form with a bitingly cold wind
cutting across Sam Boyd stadium.
Our f lapping hospitality marquee is
perched tantalisingly close to the goal
line. Punters warm up with extra spicy
Bloody Marys that splatter Tarantino-
like as the frequent conversions bombthe tent’s less attentive spectators.
As the temperature heats up so
do the matches. Kenya shock Fiji, the
Aussies brush aside Samoa and the US
show why they’re the team everyone
is talking about, especially superstar
Perry Baker. Imagine if you gave Usain
Bolt a rugby ball. The Americans
around me watching the sport for the
first time love it, especially when the
hosts go on to win the tournament.SATURDAY 20:00 - UFC 222,
T-Mobile Arena
It’s fight night in Vegas and I’m about
to get my first taste of UFC. It’s back
to the T-Mobile Arena where they’ve
somehow managed to thaw out the ice
and insert an octagon in less than 24
hours. From my bird’s-eye view the
octagon seems surprisingly large. You
get a sense of the ground fighters cover