Topic: Group wants NASCAR to sever ties with Kentucky Speedway

Team Infidel

Union organizers crisscrossed the state line Thursday getting signatures on a petition that seeks to keep the status quo with regard to the assignment of NASCAR race dates. The group wants NASCAR to sever its ties with Kentucky Speedway and uniform company Cintas. Volunteers told fans who turned out along Bristol’s State Street for Family Race Night that a lawsuit filed by Kentucky Speedway against NASCAR could force the race-sanctioning body to take race dates away from smaller tracks. The Kentucky track, owned in part by Cintas Chairman Richard Farmer, accuses NASCAR of antitrust violations because of the way the organization assigns race dates to tracks. The speedway in Sparta, Ky., opened in 2000 but has been unable to secure a Nextel Cup race date. If the lawsuit succeeds, tracks would have to compete for race dates, and the highest bidders would get the races, petition organizers said. The volunteers working the crowd didn’t tell those who signed the petition that the textile and hotel workers’ union Unite-Here! backed the petition drive. The union has a long-running dispute with Cintas over efforts to unionize Cintas’s work force. The union accuses Cintas of using intimidation to quash any moves toward unionization. Chris Rook, the organizer of the petition volunteers, said Unite-Here! would be interested in Kentucky Speedway’s lawsuit even if the track weren’t connected to Cintas. The union has collected 25,000 signatures at tracks across the country, and volunteers seemed to have little trouble attracting interest on State Street.(Bristol Herald Courier)

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