we do know is these vancouver games have brought in something like 300,000 foreign visitors and ticket sales have been very good and much has been flying off the shelves. and, hotels and restaurants have been packed. but there are costs the residents will be paying for years to come. a couple of venues were built, a luge track and a skating oval, and the highway to whistler was widened, and a $2 billion light rail line was built to the airport and there is debate over whether they were really needed and, just who benefits from the two week shot in the arm. the big problem with olympics today is, is that governments use these games as an excuse, to put forward massive infrastructure spending that leaves a legacy of debt for the taxpayers. having the olympics here gave us the platform and gave us the, you know, reason for them to come. another reason for them to come. reporter: one study estimated that british columbia will get an additional 1.1 million visitors because of the olym
million in the region, cash needed badly since vegas has been crippled by the recession. gaming revenue is off around 25% for the state. we have seen that impact. the average spend per person looking at sales tax and so forth is probably off 10 to 12%. reporter: what is driving fans to the track? obviously, the need for speed. this pace car here goes 0 to 60 in four seconds and reaches speeds of 175 miles per hour. die-hards get to celebrate something else here, too. this is the 45th anniversary of the gp-350 and the old 427 cobra that s meant so much to our history and heritage. reporter: all right. so this is the final day of this three-day event. the big race starts at noon local time, 3:00 eastern. you can watch it. it s broadcast on your local fox affiliate. i have your coors light and
so, the question is will these end up making money down the road? will this end up spurring some investment here? will companies come here because they ve seen the commercials, come to british columbia? will visitors come down the road? it s a lot of intangibles. we don t know exactly what the full price tag will be or the full benefits. juliet: we always see that when the city is the host city, they build it up, beautify it and years to be able to do that. yeah, i can see vancouver looks like a fantastic place to go. i ve never been there. what other benefits does a host city expecting the games down the road? reporter: they built a lot of infrastructure here. they built skating oval, world class skating oval, a huge track. infrastructure as far as transportation goes. they built a $2 billion light rail line that goes from downtown out to the airport. they also widened the highway that goes from vancouver up to whistler so getting up there will take about a half hour less. some pe