KANSAS SPEEDWAY IN OZ
Did you hear the joke in NASCAR about Kansas Speedway lobbying for a second annual Sprint Cup race?
If it weren’t so obnoxious it would be laughable.
It seems the speedway plans to join with the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino to build a 300-room luxury hotel and casino with 3,000 slot machines and 140 gaming tables adjacent to the speedway.
Publicly held International Speedway Corp. in conjunction with Baltimore-based Cordish Co. would develop the $700 million hotel-casino project.
The “petition” process is laughable because the speedway is owned by ISC, a publicly held entity whose stock is controlled by the France family.
That’s the same France family that owns NASCAR.
Here’s the catch: Kentucky Speedway owner Jerry Carroll has sued NASCAR and ISC for alleged antitrust violations because his track has been denied a Cup race. He claims tracks owned by ISC are favored by NASCAR when handing out Cup dates.
Duh.
The suit was dismissed in January and Carroll is in the process of selling the track to Bruton Smith’s Speedway Motorsports Inc., which owns Las Vegas Motor Speedway and several others. Carroll is appealing the dismissal.
There’s no way Kansas should be awarded a new date before Kentucky.
Kansas’ petition for another Cup date will be turned down (wink, wink).
This is nothing more than a ploy by the Frances to have NASCAR deny it so it can show in court that it does not collude with ISC on determining which tracks get lucrative Cup races.
ISC and NASCAR are either living in “Wizard of Oz” by thinking a second Kansas date will fly.
Or if it happens, then some Frances should end up in a real-life version of “Oz,” the prison from the old HBO series.
HOOSIER CONNECTION
It’s expected Tony Stewart will announce on Friday that Ryan Newman will become his teammate at Stewart-Haas Racing next year in Cup.
COLUMN TEASER
Moms, delicacies and fuzzy rules are some of the similarities between NASCAR and the Olympics. Read more in my column Friday. Just click on “Jeff’s Columns.”
