Bruton Smith says he doesn't believe former Kentucky owners will win appeal
CONCORD, N.C. – Speedway Motorsports Chairman Bruton Smith said he doesn’t think the former owners of Kentucky Speedway can win their antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR.
Smith wants the case either settled or dropped so that he can request NASCAR realign a Sprint Cup date to that track. Currently, the case is in a U.S. appeals court in Cincinnati on whether there is enough evidence to have a trial on the antitrust claims.
Last year, a U.S. District Court judge ruled there wasn’t enough evidence for trial.
“I don’t think they’ll be successful on this appeal,” said Smith, who bought the track in December from the former owners, who wanted to continue pursuing the lawsuit. “All the lawyers that I’ve talked to know they won’t. But they still appealed it.”
Track co-founder Jerry Carroll and his partners accuse NASCAR, the sanctioning body owned by the France family, and International Speedway Corp., a publicly traded company whose majority of voting stock is owned by the France family, of illegally conspiring to keep tracks such as Kentucky Speedway from getting Cup dates.
NASCAR and ISC deny those claims.
Smith, whose SMI is listed as a co-conspirator in the case, said it was Carroll’s main investors who "just didn’t throw the towel in” and opt to dismiss the case. In a recent legal filing, the original ownership group said they sold the track to Smith at a “fire-sale” price and hoped to recoup the loss as part of the lawsuit.
“It’s kind of thrown a wrench into the machinery, but we’ll get past that and move down the road,” said Smith, whose company paid $78.3 million ($15 million cash plus $63.3 assumption of debt) for the track, which opened in 2000 and took $152 million to build.
NASCAR Chairman Brian France said last month that Smith’s time is running out to get a Cup date for Kentucky on the 2010 schedule because discussions for sanctioning agreements typically are done in the spring.
Smith said he had not yet asked NASCAR to be flexible in its sanctioning process to allow a decision on the case to be made before the 2010 Cup schedule is complete. A ruling on the appeal is not expected until April at the earliest and might not come until the summer.
“This is January and I have not gone down that road yet, but I’m sure that one of these days I’ll make a right turn and go down that road,” Smith said about talking to NASCAR for some wiggle room.
Smith, who said he spent two days at Kentucky Speedway last week with architects and engineers, said he has great plans for the facility.
“Within a week, there will be a lot of work going on up there, and we’ll be doing some things,” Smith said. “You’re not going to ask me the things we’re going to be doing.”
The track builder indicated that there would be more motorhome spots at Kentucky.
“We’re making tremendous preparations to attract maybe another 10-to-15,000 of those that you couldn’t park up there today,” he said.
