Full Throttle

AT&T was granted a preliminary injunction to put its logo on Jeff Burton’s #31 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet when a federal judge in Atlanta ruled late Friday in the company’s favor.

Judge Marvin Shoob’s ruling means the AT&T logo and not the Cingular logo will be on Burton’s Chevrolet at Saturday night’s Nextel All-Star Challenge.

I had to wade through nearly a dozen news reports of this ruling before finding a Sports Illustrated account that hinted at the how and why of what the judge ruled. Even that was fairly sparse.

In his ruling, Shoob said, “The court concludes that the continued appearance of the Cingular brand on the No. 31 car, unaccompanied by any indication that Cingular now does business as AT&T, is likely to confuse NASCAR fans.”

Who am I to argue with one that wears those silly robes, but I doubt if too many fans with a mental capacity above those that toss beer bottles are confused in the least.

With all the touting of NASCAR fans “brand loyalty” and all the press this story has received those in a confused state are probably few and far in between. (and those in doubt have ignored tons “inserts” in their previously Cingular, now AT&T phone bills)

Shoob also concluded that AT&T has shown it will suffer irreparable harm in the form of loss of goodwill and loss of exclusive rights to renew its sponsorship agreement unless the court issues the injunction.

That provides a little more meat to the rulings basis, “irreparable harm,” the following quote provides more:

“Regardless of whether Sprint Nextel could or may bring suit against NASCAR, the court finds that the threat of such a suit does not outweigh the actual and imminent irreparable harm plaintiff will suffer if the court does not issue an injunction,” Shoob said in his ruling.

Of course NASCAR continues to plead it’s case: NASCAR said in a statement that it is weighing “any and all options for appeal” of the ruling. It said it was disappointed by the ruling.

“NASCAR will continue to protect the industry from actions designed to interrupt a business model which has been beneficial to all,” it said.

As a personnel point of contention, and probably well argued in court as well, someone remind me just why it isn’t the Sprint Cup Championship and it’s titled the Chase for the NEXTEL Cup?

Oh yeah, because of a corporate merger that swallowed up Sprint just as Cingular was gobbled up like a Christmas turkey by AT&T.

The appeals will follow but for now RCR and Jeff Burton aren’t under threat of losing millions of dollars in sponsorship money. And the #31 will actually get the wrap it deserves, one that says AT&T.

UPDATE: Richard Childress comments on the above ruling: “It sounds great to me. I am just really happy for AT&T that we are going to be able to re-brand our car to AT&T and carry on. We want to get back to really trying to win this championship. It is just a great day for RCR and AT&T.”

IN SOMEWHAT RELATED NEWS: Somehow I missed news of the RCR/DEI engine deal noted in the link above. My guess is that association would negate any possibility Dale Jr. would consider moving to RCR.

And puts my prognostication of Dale Jr, in a Ginn Racing ride a bit closer to reality.

NASCAR, NEXTEL Cup, Sports, Jeff Burton, AT&T, Auto Racing, Motorsports, Full Throttle