NASCAR collector, race team owner Andrew Franzone pleads guilty to securities fraud

A former business associate of NASCAR Truck Series champion Mike Skinner has pleaded guilty to securities fraud. Andrew Franzone, former co-owner of ATF & Gunslinger with Skinner, has had his legal troubles almost come to a conclusion. He now awaits sentencing.

Andrew Franzone is a NASCAR superfan who tricked 100 people in a securities and wire fraud scheme. Drivers and race fans were among those victimized by the hedge fund scheme. More than $40 million was invested into Franzone’s plot.

That money was then used for personal expenses. Among the purchases was a private hangar where Franzone planned to store his vintage and rare car collection, including NASCAR stock cars. He also used the funds to fuel his ATF & Gunslinger race team.

In the late 2010s, the race team participated in a number of events. Mike Skinner drove a truck at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. The team also fielded cars for Speedweeks at New Smyrna.

Andrew Franzone is now awaiting sentencing. Franzone’s attorney believes that there was a limit on a “great deal of the evidence,” and that is why his client chose to plead guilty and avoid trial. According to the attorney, investors may yet be “made whole, maybe as much as 10 times over.”

Franzone attempted to argue that one of his investments hit it big. A $250,000 investment into CoreWeave, an Nvidia-supported cloud computing startup, turned into $55 million. The court barred that line of defense.

Franzone claims to own the Ford Galaxie that Fred Lorenzen drove to the win at the 1965 Daytona 500. It feels like there are so many NASCAR-related court cases going on right now. Everywhere you look, a new one pops up.

NASCAR legal troubles are the thing right now

When it comes to NASCAR and legal issues, there is the big one – the 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports lawsuit against the sanctioning body. But there have been a few others recently that have caught the attention of fans and the industry.

Legacy Motor Club is taking Rick Ware Racing to court over a charter. They say that the deal was for 2026 and that the charter would be sold for $45M from RWR to LMC. Rick Ware says the deal wasn’t supposed to be until 2027.

Recently, we all saw how Lamar Jackson was ready to take Dale Earnhardt Jr. to court over a trademark dispute. That was resolved quickly because Dale Jr. didn’t feel like going through the trouble.

NASCAR lawsuits and court cases are just the thing right now. Everybody’s doing it. All joking aside, it has been a very legal-heavy year in the sport. That is going to continue with the big lawsuit hanging over the sport.