They put on a big show, the cars, the tracks and the lights.

But a review and another by a government watchdog group found stock car racing spends big money in Washington too.

NASCAR and the International Speedway Corporation, which operates some of the nation's most legendary tracks, have coughed up a combined $460,000 in campaign contributions to lobbyists since 2011.

Industry representatives have ponied up $500,000 in campaign contributors to political candidates.

Melanie Sloan said it paid off New Year's Day when Congress tucked a special tax program specifically for motor raceways into the historical fiscal cliff deal, an adjustment that will reportedly allow track operators to keep an estimated $70 million over the next two years.

"It is astonishing, we are going over the fiscal cliff … everything is getting cut," said Sloan, "We all have to wonder why is racecar driving more important than the things in the Pentagon, hospitals or other things that Americans would admit are far more important.

Eyewitness News dug through federal campaign donations and found thousands of dollars of contributions from NASCAR's chief executive and from the head of the International Speedway Corporation.

Both organizers declined to answer questions about the purpose, or motives, of those donations.

Some members of Congress who objected to the special tax arrangement.

The International Speedway Corporation defends its deal, telling Eyewitness News that racing is an industry that regularly buys property and already pays fat corporate taxes.

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