Off the track?

Legal fight over NASCAR race dates could get nasty

TV ratings are solid. Splashy new race tracks are going up. Young new drivers are capturing the fans' imagination. NASCAR has never been more popular.

But there's trouble in Pit Road paradise. The sports' two kingpins -- Bruton Smith and NASCAR family head Bill France Jr. -- are squaring off in a legal battle over the number of race dates at various NASCAR speedways.

Oh, technically Smith isn’t part of a federal antitrust suit filed earlier this year in Sherman, Texas, against NASCAR, but his fingerprints are all over it. Plaintiff Francis Ferko, a stockholder in Smith's Texas Motor Speedway, contends that NASCAR reneged on an agreement to give the Fort Worth track a second Winston Cup race date.

Another plaintiff is Rusty Vaughn, president of the children’s charity at the track, which has distributed more than $1.4 million to Dallas-area youth groups since 2000. You can already hear the arguments about these poor kids being shortchanged by NASCAR's one-race policy.

Attorneys for Texas Motor Speedway contend each race is worth $40 million to $60 million, counting TV money and gate revenue. Word is they’re looking for at least $200 million in damages.

The case could go to trial as soon as January. Plaintiff attorneys are taking depositions from top officials at NASCAR and its sister corporation, International Speedway Corp. -- people like France, George Pyne and Mike Helton. Smith, Ferko and Vaughn have already been deposed.

You know this is high-stakes stuff when the plaintiffs hire the law firm that counts Johnnie Cochran as a partner. David Boies, who argued the government’s antitrust case against Microsoft, is a partner in the firm defending the France family.

Away from lawyers and handlers, the kingpins have acted like a couple grumpy old men. France, 69, has not-so-eloquently described Smith as sounding "constipated." The 75-year-old Smith suggested France doesn’t always "activate his brain before he speaks."

The big issue here is whether the France family has violated antitrust law through its dual control of NASCAR, the sport’s sanctioning body, and ISC, the dominant track operator.

Smith badly wants a second Winston Cup date for his successful Fort Worth track -- the date he has was transferred from a track he bought in North Wilkesboro, N.C. France, through NASCAR, has steadfastly turned down his request even as the sanctioning body has managed to find new dates for a handful of tracks opened by ISC.

According to Ferko’s attorney, Samuel Cherry Jr., the dispute dates to a 1994 meeting between France and Smith at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York, where they were attending NASCAR’s annual awards bash.

“At that meeting is when Bill France asked him, ‘Will you help me grow NASCAR into a national sport?'" said Cherry. “Bill was aware that Bruton had selected that North Texas market [to build a track]. And the question was asked, ‘Am I gonna get an expansion date there?’

“It is Bruton Smith’s position that he made the request and that Bill France said, ‘Yes.’ But what happened when it came time to fulfill the promise and grant an expansion date to Texas Motor Speedway in 1997, the dynamics of track ownership had changed considerably. By then, SMI owns five tracks and ISC owns four. Suddenly, fulfillment of the promise is gonna complicate and threaten ISC’s position of leadership in the industry.

“It is our position that because there is a shift in the potential dominance of the sport and those players in it, that suddenly they decided to put the obligation on the backburner."

Repeated attempts to get a response from NASCAR proved futile. We suspect they feel Bruton Smith is full of baloney, but Cherry hinted at some juicy business dealings -- which are likely to come out at trial -- that speak to potential monopoly practices and antitrust violations.

ISC and the France family now own 13 tracks, according to Cherry, and control Martinsville, where Bill France individually owns half the track and has an option to purchase the remainder. Smith’s company owns six tracks.

Of the 36 Cup point races, says Cherry, NASCAR has assigned 22 to tracks affiliated with France and ISC.

You can’t help wonder why France has so stubbornly refused to give Smith his extra Cup date. In NASCAR, you have a sanctioning body that makes the rules and divvies out the race dates -- and also runs a corporation that owns more Winston Cup race tracks than anybody else.

If this suit ever gets to court, NASCAR's business dealings risk being exposed as something akin more to pro wrestling than the major professional sports leagues. If France and Smith have any sense at all, they'll put their egos aside, work things out and enjoy what they have.

Mike Fish is a senior writer for SI.com.

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