NASCAR ATT hearing date set

The preliminary injunction hearing in the AT&T vs. NASCAR lawsuit over the sponsorship of the No. 31 Richard Childress Racing Nextel Cup car driven by Jeff Burton will be April 26 in U.S. District Court in Atlanta.

NASCAR had asked the court to delay the injunction hearing, but U.S. District court Senior Judge Marvin H. Shoob denied the request Thursday.

AT&T is seeking an injunction to put its logos on Burton's car. NASCAR has forbidden the AT&T logos because of its agreement with Nextel to sponsor NASCAR's premier series.

Cingular, which is Burton's current sponsor, merged with AT&T in December, and AT&T is phasing out the Cingular name. Cingular had been grandfathered in as a sponsor when the Nextel-NASCAR contract was signed in 2003.

AT&T claims that none of the annual contracts teams sign with NASCAR to get a car number forbid Cingular from changing its name on the car, so it should not be forbidden from making the change. NASCAR argues that Cingular and RCR knew that they couldn't make a change and that NASCAR has the right to reject any paint scheme. Scenedaily