The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has given NASCAR a major victory in an ongoing lawsuit over the Kentucky Speedway. The former owners of the speedway had brought an antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR and International Speedway Corp., but the three-judge panel affirmed a lower-court summary judgment in favor of NASCAR.
In effect, the case allows NASCAR to continue awarding Sprint Cup dates as it sees fit. However, as Scene Daily notes, the case could actually result in Kentucky getting a Sprint Cup date as early as 2011. NASCAR has told the facility's new owner, Speedway Motorsports, that it would not award a Sprint date to Kentucky until all lawsuits were resolved. SMI purchased the 1.5-mile track, located near Cincinnati, in May 2008.
The facility's former owners can now appeal either to a full 24-judge panel or to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the chances of the case even being accepted, much less ruled on in the plaintiffs' favor, aren't particularly good.
The judges determined that "KYS's [the founders] contention that its inability to purchase an independent racetrack because NASCAR, ISC, and SMI have colluded against it is unsupported by the record. KYS does not appear to have been hampered in its efforts to bid for an independent track, and even if KYS should have won the bid, antitrust law does not require that sellers of independent tracks make good business decisions."
The founders' attorneys said during the trial that NASCAR engaged in "anti-competitive, illegal conduct." NASCAR attorneys countered that the speedway "wanted the most premier product, the most scarce product. They didn’t get it in five years, so they sued. They didn’t get it in eight years, so they sold. They wanted NASCAR to give them for free this very valuable right. … They want one [Cup race]. Everybody wants one. Everybody who has one wants two."
Should Kentucky get a date, in all likelihood another track will have to lose one of its dates. It's been an ongoing question -- which track should lose one? If Speedway Motorsports were to shift one of its dates, the likely choices would be either Atlanta or Loudon. And since SMI is looking to add a second Las Vegas date, it's possible that both tracks could lose a race.
Appeals court sides with NASCAR in Kentucky Speedway case [Scene Daily]
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