AT&T pressing ahead with lawsuit

NASCAR's premiere series is sponsored by telecoms company Nextel, and the teams competing in the Nextel Cup are not allowed to sign sponsorship deals with rival telecoms companies.

However, the series organisers made an exception for those cars already entered into a sponsorship deal when Nextel came on board in 2003 - meaning Burton could continue his Cingular sponsorship deal, which began in 2001.

AT&T recently acquired Bellsouth, co-owner of the Cingular brand, and therefore has moved to change the No. 31 livery from Cingular to the AT&T globe logo.

After NASCAR rejected AT&T's plan, however, the telecoms giant filed a lawsuit last week against the American stock car series in a Georgia district court.

And yesterday, AT&T filed a further motion for preliminary injunctive relief, seeking to expedite the rebranding of the car.

AT&T's suit claims that NASCAR has violated the company's rights to sponsor the No. 31 race car, noting grandfather clauses in the NASCAR agreements that were designed to protect its rights in favour of their title sponsor.

"We must bring this issue to resolution," John Burbank, AT&T vice president of Marketing said in a statement.

"The season is well under way and so are our re-branding efforts. This filing is a logical next step for us in the process, and it is one we must pursue so that we can simply move forward with our paint scheme - something our relationship with NASCAR allows us to do."

Earlier this season, NASCAR complained about the size and placing of the Shell logos on the car, race-suit and helmet of Daytona 500 winner Kevin Harvick. Sunoco, a rival for Shell in the US market, is the official fuel supplier of NASCAR.

At Atlanta Motor Speedway, driver and team owner Robby Gordon was also in the centre of controversy with NASCAR after being told by the ruling body that he could not place Motorola logos on his Nextel Cup car.

Gordon had switched the branding from his Busch car after losing one of his major sponsors.