AT&T/Cingular vs. NASCAR: Round 327
Monday, August 13th, 2007 5:20pm CDT
By Luke, Thunder Lounge
Published on Thunder Lounge.
Ruh Roh!
According to Marty Smith, a Federal Court has granted NASCAR’s appeal against AT&T/Cingular.
According to the ruling, the Feds say that because Cingular (AT&T, whoever they want to be called now) had an agreement with RCR and NOT NASCAR, that the so-called “Grandfather Clause” does not apply to them, and therefore the previous ruling in favor of Cingular/AT&T was overturned.
What this mean specifically for Michigan wasn’t known, but is suspected that “Plan B” would be to put the Cingular name back on the #31 of Jeff Burton.
This is one big mess, and it isn’t getting any better.
Sheesh. Sprint can buy out their competition, Nextel, and change whatever the hell they want to, why not allow a name change from Cingular to AT&T?
What exactly is Sprint afraid of? Competition?
Here’s a friendly suggestion to RCR. AT&T is more than wireless, and its only “wireless” that has this “rule” against it.
Same logo, and everything else is in the “paperwork”.
Then again, NASCAR threw a hissy fit over Motorola, which merely makes phones, although Sprint does offer that brand of phone amongst others.
Naturally NASCAR feels this is a remarkable “win”, but I’m calling shenanigans.
End result:
Fans are the real losers here, and both entities seem to have forgotten them.
Filed Under: Drivers, Jeff Burton, Nascar, Nextel Cup, Richard Childress Racing #31, Teams
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“Then again, NASCAR threw a hissy fit over Motorola.”
Yeah but that hissy fit failed to last the weekend and Robby just used another Motorola logo from a different branch of the company.
As you imply that’s what AT&T should do. I’m guessing the #31 will be in “black” this weekend. It makes little sense to me to have an orange and blue logo of a company that no longer exists.
But what the hell do I know, Mama passed along too much common sense to me.
I bet Richard’s plans for a fourth team just went out the window. He’ll be too busy looking for another pri-sponsor for Burton.
True, but it wasn’t on the hood as originally intended.
I wouldn’t count this as the end of the 4th car though. I just don’t buy it one bit.
Why?
You can’t tell me that RCR doesn’t have multiple contingency plans in place. I won’t buy that even for a nickel. If they didn’t see this phase of the game coming, I’d be utterly shocked into a heart attack.
So, I can’t see it having and effect on the 4th team. That’s been in the works for quite a while.
The hauler at Michigan was totally black. The car had more black than I remembered - but I’m not sure more than it had. What bothered me about the whole thing was, I was actually looking to see how much black and orange were on said car and hauler. I really don’t give a damn what happens in this deal. Get another sponsor and let some lesser team worry about this BS. NASCAR is shooting itself in the foot - or maybe head - here, but it won’t bleed. If Childress has the right fourth driver, sponsorship will not be a problem for RCR. His having a fourth car WILL be a problem for some other team though.
Well, it appears that NASCAR is “expecting” the #31 to be without that AT&T logo this weekend at Bristol.
I do agree that RCR having a 4th car isn’t an issue for RCR, and you’re absolutely right that it would be an issue for some other team. Mainly one that’s struggling to make the show to begin with.
I wonder who the fallen would be though.