Originally published on Mar. 20, 2024
By Zane Miller
On Saturday, October 6th, 2001, Greg Biffle
took the victory in the Little Trees 300 NASCAR Busch (now Xfinity) Series race
at Lowe’s Motor Speedway (now Charlotte Motor Speedway), as he got by future
Cup Series teammate Matt Kenseth with three laps to go and proceeded to win the
event under caution with Kenseth spinning out. However, this article isn’t
about the race itself, but rather the crazy controversy involving the speedway
and the television broadcaster, TNT. In fact, the squabble between the two
parties almost resulted in the race being pulled from the channel entirely.
Starting in 1999, home improvement supply store Lowe’s
acquired the naming rights to what had been known as Charlotte Motor Speedway since
its opening in 1960. This was noteworthy as the first-ever naming rights deal
for a NASCAR track, though it was soon followed by Sears Point Raceway becoming
Infineon Raceway in 2002. Lowe’s had been involved in NASCAR as a sponsor since
the 1960’s and was headquartered in the Charlotte area, so sponsoring the track
made plenty of sense.
In 2000, both Cup Series races at Lowe’s Motor
Speedway were aired on TBS, which is owned by the same company that owns TNT. In
both races, TBS evidently had no problem with using the corporate name of the
track, seeing as how it was prominently featured in both broadcasts. However, in
2001, the TBS portion of the schedule was shifted to TNT as the company felt
NASCAR would be more in line with TNT’s branding. In addition, the network joined
forces with NBC to use the same on-air talent and production crew, as the two
networks had broadcasting rights to the second half of both the Cup Series and
Busch Series seasons.
The rift began during NBC/TNT’s coverage of Cup Series
practice two days before the Busch Series race, as the announcers did not refer
to Lowe’s Motor Speedway as such, instead calling it simply “Charlotte”
whenever the track itself was mentioned. This was reportedly due to Lowe’s not
paying for any commercial space during the race weekend, thus prompting the
network to tell their announcers not to mention Lowe’s during the broadcast.
According to the speedway’s president, Humpy Wheeler, he held a meeting with
the network executives to inform them that they were required to call the track
“Lowe’s Motor Speedway”, stating "This television deal is supposed to be a
partnership between the speedways, NASCAR and the networks.” This meeting
apparently did not go as planned, however, as TNT continued to refuse to
mention Lowe’s in the leadup to the Busch Series race on Saturday.
With his argument falling on deaf ears, Lowe’s Motor
Speedway opted to go with a more extreme approach to solving the problem, which
was to order track security guards to begin towing the TNT satellite trucks,
responsible for allowing the race to be broadcast over the air, out of the
facility. At this point, there was a very real possibility that this petty
bickering could cause the Busch race to not be broadcast at all. However, it’s
uncertain whether this maneuver was a genuine threat or just track officials
trying to make their point, as although there were tow trucks hooked up to the
satellite trucks, no attempt was made to actually remove them from the
premises. TNT, still incredibly determined to not give out any free
advertising, continued to refuse to mention Lowe’s during the pre-race show.
This pre-race show would last quite a bit longer than
initially planned, as the start of the Busch race was delayed for over two
hours due to rain. During the entire delay, the tow trucks reportedly stayed
attached to the satellite trucks. However, once the weather cleared up and
racing was finally able to commence, the broadcast went off without a hitch. In
case you were wondering, TNT only referred to the track as “Charlotte” for the
rest of Saturday, but finally relented in time for the Cup Series race on
Sunday by using the Lowe’s Motor Speedway name throughout the broadcast,
bringing an end to the bizarre dispute.
Had this controversy occurred at any other time, it
likely would have gotten far more coverage and would have been more likely to
be remembered today. However, due to the September 11th terrorist
attacks occurring less than a month earlier and the fatal accident involving
part-time Busch Series driver Blaise Alexander, who was killed in an ARCA crash
at Lowe’s Motor Speedway just two days prior, this story became a brief
footnote that isn’t covered much today.
In 2010, the naming rights deal with Lowe’s expired,
leading to the speedway reverting back to its original name of Charlotte Motor
Speedway. TNT’s last broadcast of a Busch Series event came in 2006, though it
would continue to broadcast Cup Series races until 2014. While TNT will pick up
its NASCAR coverage once again in 2025, it is unlikely that the situation with them and
Lowe’s Motor Speedway will repeat itself.
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