DETROIT, May 29 (UPI) -- Nextel Cup driver Kasey Kahne is being sued by Ford Motor Co. for breach of contract.
The Detroit News reported Sunday the suit will go to trial in September.
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The suit alleges Kahne, 25, defected to Dodbe because Ford would not allow him to race on the Nextel Cup circuit, confining him to lesser races. The paper said Kahne, who won his first Nextel Cup race May 14, secretly agreed to drive Dodge-powered cars in fall 2003.
The suit has turned bitter and offers a peak into how automakers use the racing circuit and its drivers as marketing tools.
"Before he started winning, Kasey Kahne was nobody," U.S. District Judge Robert H. Cleland said last week. "He was essentially a non-entity."
