Diversity Motorsports CEO Terrence Cox, dropped a bombshell this week when he filed a $500 million lawsuit against NASCAR, 18 of its teams and the ISC for alleged racial discrimination. The lawsuit included the name of comedian Steve Harvey, who was quick to blast Cox and Diversity Motorsports for involving him in the matter.
Harvey, who according to the lawsuit was dissuaded from doing business with Cox , spoke out on the matter during his afternoon radio program on Tuesday. While Harvey did admit that he did meet with Cox about exposing underprivileged kids to the sport of NASCAR, he claims that the alleged meeting with NASCAR never even took place.
“Here’s the problem with this story,” Harvey said. “I never had a meeting with NASCAR. I’ve never been interested in a race car. I don’t even like fast cars. I like big slow cars.” If that statement by Harvey wasn’t damning enough for Cox and Diversity media when it comes to the lawsuit, Harvey also claims that the meeting Cox had with him was on a different subject entirely.
“He was going to boycott Coca-Cola and have all the youth come down there and block the streets,” Harvey said. “I told him I’m not going to send any young kids down to block no streets in Atlanta in front of Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola ain’t done nothing to me. Coca-Cola ain’t done nothing to him. (What) if something happens to one of these kids? You have to be kidding me.”
NASCAR wasted no time ushering out a statement of their own that called the lawsuit “meritless and attention seeking.” NASCAR also took the time to assure everyone that diversity was a top priority for them and their stakeholders. The statement closed with a promise to assert their own claims against Cox for his ”defamatory actions” towards the company.
Unfortunately for Cox, these statements could be very damning to his credibility regarding this case Sure, these other meetings that Cox claims to have had with sponsors, drivers, and even top NASCAR officials could all very well be true, but if they aren’t, then Cox is left with very little to go on.
Terrence Cox also loses credibility when you consider that even an open letter circulated by someone under the alias, Ray Cerox, calls Cox’s approach towards NASCAR, confrontational and unorthodox. With that being said, it will be interesting to see if many of the meetings that are alleged in the lawsuit actually took place and what the tones of the meeting were.
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In the end, Steve Harvey coming out with these statements are a huge blow to Cox . They also seem to show a more hostile side to Cox, especially since he was allegedly willing to bring disadvantaged youths to Atlanta to boycott Coca-Cola. That and the fact that Harvey never had a conversation with NASCAR, should be enough to cast serious doubt towards anything Cox says.