Cingular Ring Tones

2007-04-28T12:38:00.001-07:00

ATLANTA — Jeff Burton's No. 31 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet will bear the familiar Cingular markings for at least two more weeks.

There was no decision Thursday on AT&T's request for an injunction to have its logos placed on Burton's car. Instead, U.S. District court judge Marvin H. Schoob listened to almost four hours of arguments from NASCAR, AT&T and Nextel, then set May 7 as the deadline for brie fs to be submitted cingular ring tones.

At Thursday's preliminary injunction hearing, NASCAR attorneys defended the decision to stop Cingular — the primary sponsor of the No. 31 car — from changing its branding on the car to the AT&T blue globe.

Cingular merged with AT&T in December, and AT&T is phasing out the Cingular brand cingular ring tones.

Sprint Nextel Corp. sponsors NASCAR's premier series, the Nextel Cup, and has exclusive rights as the telecommunications company for the series. The only exceptions are companies, including Cingular, that already sponsored cars when Nextel reached its agreement with NASCAR.

Cingular is arguing that its rights include changing its brand name to AT&T cingular ring tones.

"We have changed our name, but we are the same company as we were before we changed our name," said David Balser, attorney for AT&T Inc.

"Sprint has said the value of its investment would increase if they could drive us out," Balser said to Schoob. "That is what this is about, your honor. Sprint Nextel is trying to use our name change to drive us out of the sport."

Note

• Driving an open-wheel Indy car for only the second time, Milka Duno earned her IndyCar series rookie license — three days before she makes her series debut at cingular ring tonesKansas Speedway.

The 34-year-old Venezuelan, who is moving to Indy cars from sports-car racing, becomes the third woman in the IndyCar series behind Sarah Fisher and Danica Patrick. All three are in the field for Sunday's Kansas Lottery Indy 300 cingular ring tones. :)