Ferko v. National Ass'n for Stock Car Auto Racing, Inc.

Ferko, et al. v. National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, Inc., et al., commonly known as the Ferko lawsuit, was an American lawsuit between plaintiff Francis Ferko, a resident of Plano, Texas, and a minor shareholder of the then-publicly traded Speedway Motorsports, Inc. (SMI), and defendants NASCAR and International Speedway Corporation (ISC), which are both owned by the France family. Ferko filed a derivative suit that contended NASCAR and ISC violated an implied agreement with SMI to provide a second NEXTEL Cup race per racing season upon completion of the speedway and violated antitrust laws by preventing SMI from obtaining one.[1]

The suit was filed in February 2002 and was settled in May 2004.[1] The settlement delivered the desired second Sprint Cup race each season to Texas Motor Speedway and resulted in numerous other changes to the NASCAR schedule of races and racing venues after a series of transactions between SMI and ISC.[2]

Settlement

Ferko was represented by The Cochran Firm, and filed the suit after SMI refused to take legal action against NASCAR and ISC regarding the alleged promise of a second date. SMI, while publicly approving of Ferko's actions, made no attempt to coordinate with him or aid him in the lawsuit. NASCAR publicly labeled Ferko a proxy for SMI, and unsuccessfully moved to have SMI named as the main plaintiff.

As the case was preparing to go to trial in 2004, the parties settled as part of a larger restructuring of NASCAR's schedule.[1] In the settlement, ISC sold the North Carolina Speedway in Rockingham (now known as Rockingham Speedway) to SMI, with Rockingham removed from the NEXTEL Cup schedule, and its remaining (February) race moved to ISC's Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California. Continuing with NASCAR's schedule realignment, Texas earned its promised second race (the reason for the lawsuit) when a November race, used for the prestigious Southern 500 (renamed the Dickies 500 in Texas), was moved to Texas from ISC's Darlington Raceway. As it happens, the November date had been inherited by Darlington from Rockingham only a year earlier, when Rockingham had been reduced from two NEXTEL Cup races to one. The November date gave Texas a race in the Chase for the Nextel Cup and cost Darlington the more prestigious of its two race dates.[2] For its part, SMI had to agree that Rockingham would be used only for non-competition NASCAR uses, such as for movie settings about the sport or for testing.[1] As a result of a 2006 NASCAR testing rule change limiting testing on tracks used for NASCAR competition, testing at Rockingham has become more commonplace. SMI sold off the Rockingham track in 2007, and the track closed when its owner went bankrupt in 2015.

Personal fallout

After filing the suit, Ferko claimed he lost his job in food safety as a result of the suit's publicity, and he and his wife moved to Atlanta for his new job. Shortly after moving, their 20-year-old son Anthony, who remained in Texas to be with his own 6-month-old son, committed suicide.[1] After Ferko and his wife failed to win custody of their grandson, they divorced. Following the settlement, SMI maintained its distance from Ferko to help repair its relationship with NASCAR, and in 2005, before the initial running of the Dickies 500, Ferko expressed his disappointment in SMI for not compensating him for his part in the lawsuit, and expressed regret at pursuing it.[1]

In 2005, Kentucky Speedway filed a similar suit against NASCAR and ISC, requesting a NEXTEL Cup race at their venue. However, unlike the promise of a second race at the heart of the Ferko lawsuit, the France family had expressly told Kentucky Speedway that it would not be given a race, and so the case was filed on antitrust grounds only.[3] The lawsuit was dismissed on January 7, 2008, although the track's owners appealed the dismissal.[4] On May 22, 2008, Speedway Motorsports, Inc. announced it had purchased Kentucky Speedway from Kentucky Speedway, LLC and further litigation became moot as a result. The purchase was finalized on January 1, 2009. Bruton Smith, head of Speedway Motorsports Inc. who bought the racetrack, said he had plans to bring a Sprint Cup race to Kentucky Speedway. That came in 2011 when Kentucky Speedway gained a date at the expense of Atlanta Motor Speedway.[5] This change was reversed in 2020, with Kentucky losing the Quaker State 400 back to Atlanta beginning in 2021.[6]

References
  1. Wilson, Jeff. "Fan wishes he hadn't filed suit". Dallas-Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Archived from the original on 2006-07-08. Retrieved 2006-12-28.
  2. "Ferko Lawsuit Settled As Texas And Phoenix Gain Cup Races". Street and Smith's SportsBusiness Daily. May 14, 2004. Retrieved 2009-06-01.
  3. Jeff Wolf (March 12, 2006). "Litigation on track causes caution flag". Las Vegas Review-Journal. Retrieved 2009-06-01.
  4. "Kentucky Speedway to Appeal Antitrust Lawsuit Decision". Kentucky Speedway. January 7, 2008. Retrieved 2009-06-01.
  5. Graves, Will (August 2, 2010). "Report: Kentucky Speedway getting Sprint Cup race". Lexington Herald-Leader. Retrieved 2013-11-08.
  6. Hoffman, Jason (September 29, 2020). "Kentucky Speedway losing its NASCAR races in 2021, will be 'multi-use rental complex'". USA Today. Retrieved October 1, 2020.
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