Real news surfaces during normally quiet offseason
This is the toughest time of the year for NASCAR fans. We’re still closer to the end of the just-completed season than we are to the start of the next season. So for those who love to read the latest news about their favorite sport, this is the time of year when the biggest news story each day is usually headlined something like, “Speedway Honors Volunteers For Holding Christmas Toy Drive.”
Not exactly the type of news that gets your motor racing.
Yet this offseason, we’ve seen several big stories develop.
Without question, the news that Kentucky Speedway will likely land a Sprint Cup race for 2011 has the biggest impact on the sport. If you’ve been following the story the past several years, Kentucky Speedway’s founders filed an antitrust suit in 2005 against NASCAR and International Speedway Corp., which they lost.
In the meantime, they sold the track to Speedway Motorsports Inc. SMI Chairman Bruton Smith announced his desire to move one of his company’s existing Sprint Cup race dates to Kentucky Speedway, but had to wait for the speedway’s antitrust suit to play out in the U.S. Court of Appeals.
The court announced Dec. 11 it had denied that appeal, opening the door for Smith to move a date. Which SMI track will yield a race date to Kentucky? Atlanta Motor Speedway seems to be the most likely source, but that decision won’t be announced until later next year.
Beyond the transfer of a race date, the fact that the U.S. Court of Appeals sided with NASCAR and ISC in the antitrust suit further validated NASCAR’s business model, likely shutting the door on any further such suits (remember the similar Ferko vs. NASCAR suit from a few years ago?).
“NASCAR is pleased with the court’s ruling, which supports our case, that like other sports such as the NFL, MLB and the NBA, NASCAR can host its events where it decides is best for the sport and its fans,” NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston said in a statement after the court’s ruling.
That’s big news, usually quite a rarity in NASCAR this time of year.
