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NASCAR Scores Big Win Over Ky Speedway

By Mark

A US District Court judge in Kentucky handed a big win to the Frances family in an antitrust battle with the Kentucky Speedway over the awarding of lucrative Sprint (formerly Nextel) Cup dates. Judge William Bertlesman dismissed the lawsuit brought Kentucky Speedway against NASCAR and International Speedway Corp, saying that Ky Speedway had failed to make a case.

The suit was filed more than two years ago alleging that NASCAR and ISC had violated federal antitrust laws by conspiring together in the awarding of Sprint Cup racing dates. NASCAR is wholly owned by the Frances family and ISC is a public corporation controlled by the Frances family. A more detailed discussion of the complaint can be found in my original post on the case.

Judge Bertlesman basically cast the case as one of a jilted distributor, saying that: "a producer of a product is free under current antitrust laws to select its distributors and to refuse to deal with would-be distributors, no matter how worthy or deserving they may be."

While the owners of Ky Speedway may appeal, and have indicated that they will, their real option at this point is to buy a track that has a Sprint Cup date and move it to Kentucky. Their most recent attempt to do that, New Hampshire International Speedway, was frustrated by the other NASCAR behemoth, Speedway Motorports Inc, which swept in and bought it at the last minute last November.

Full post as published by Sports Biz on January 08, 2008 (boomark / email).