Denny Hamlin (left) talks with Front Row Motorsports owner Bob Jenkins during qualifying for the NASCAR Cup Series Jack Link’s 500 on April 26, 2025 at Talladega SuperSpeedway in Talladega, AL. (Photo by Jeff Robinson/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
The third day of the NASCAR Trust trial in Federal Court in Charlotte, North Carolina included more testimony by NASCAR executive Scott Prime, followed by Front Row Motorsports owner Bob Jenkins.
NASCAR is being sued by 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports for anti-trust violations claiming it operates as a monopoly. Basketball Hall of Famer Michael Jordan and three-time Daytona 500 winner and NASCAR star Denny Hamlin co-owns 23XI Racing. Jenkins is the owner of Front Row Motorsports. Those were the only two organizations of the 15 in NASCAR that did not sign agreements in 2024 on new charters.
A NASCAR charter is considered a franchise in other sports leagues.
NASCAR Trial Day 3 Details With Bob Jenkins Testimony
During Wednesday’s third day of the trial, NASCAR Executive Vice President in Charge of Strategy Scott Prime was back on the stand. Jenkins followed and gave emotional testimony, according to Jenna Fryer of the Associated Press.
Jenkins testified he was “honestly very hurt” by a “take-it-or-leave-it” offer on a new charter agreement that came with a deadline of mere hours to sign the 112-page document. He said he was out to dinner with his parents and had no cell signal when the charter offer came in.
“There was a lot of passion, a lot of emotion, especially from Joe Gibbs, he felt like he had to sign it,” Jenkins testified. “Joe Gibbs felt like he let me down by signing. Not a single owner said, ‘I was happy to sign it. Not a single one.’”
Jenkins said the charter agreements arrived at 6 p.m. Friday with a midnight deadline to sign them. He felt the timing was deliberate as “no attorney on the East Coast was available to read a 112-page document” according to Fryer’s AP report.
He claimed NASCAR “knew we had to blindly sign it. Some of these owners have $500-$600 million facilities, long-term sponsors. They couldn’t walk away from that.”
Jenkins asked for and received an extension on signing but testified NASCAR Commissioner Steve Phelps made clear it was for review purposes only and told Jenkins, “negotiations are concluded. We are not re-opening the document,” according to AP.
“It was insulting, it went so far backward,” Jenkins testified. “NASCAR wanted to run the governance with an iron fist, it was like taxation without representation. NASCAR has the right to do whatever it wants.”
Later, Jenkins testified, “This is not about bashing the France family. They’ve made a lot of great decisions. This charter is not one of them.”
More Team Owners Prepare To Testify In NASCAR Trial
Other team owners are on the list to testify beginning Friday. Those include Heather Gibbs of Joe Gibbs Racing, former RFK Racing President Steve Newmark, now the Associate Athletic Director at the University of North Carolina, Legacy Motor Club CEO Cal Wells and team owners Rick Hendrick, Roger Penske and Richard Childress.
US District Judge Kenneth D. Bell informed attorney Jeffrey Kelser, who represents 23XI and Front Row Motorsports, that he wanted the jury to hear financial details for each team. NASCAR attorney Chris Yates said the finances for Hendrick’s and Penske’s teams were in their depositions, according to Deb Williams of AutoWeek.
Bell instructed both legal teams to ask general questions regarding team finances.
“You don’t have to go line-by-line over profits and losses,” Bell told attorneys according to William’s report. “I don’t like crucial pieces of evidence being excluded from the public.”
NASCAR Trial Text Message Trail
One issue that has taken up attention was communications that showed NASCAR executives tried to lock the tracks it competes on into exclusivity clauses that would prohibit them from hosting other events, according to Jenna Fryer of the Associated Press.
In the AP report, Kessler showed an agreement with Las Vegas Motor Speedway in which NASCAR implemented a clause in which the track could not host a rival stock car series for two years after its deal with NASCAR expires.
Kessler also showed communications between Prime, NASCAR Commissioner Steve Phelps and NASCAR President Steve O’Donnell in which the three expressed frustration with NASCAR chairman Jim France and vice chair Lesa France Kennedy because the owners of the series refused to offer any concessions in negotiations.
It was revealed the NASCAR Commissioner Steve Phelps worried the current charter proposal had “zero wins for the teams.” NASCAR President Steve Phelps believed the agreement would set NASCAR back to 1998 and it would go back to being a “dictatorship, redneck, Southern tiny sport.”
“From my point of view, where we landed was strong for the two teams,” Prime said.
Prime also admitted he was not familiar with sanctioning agreements and had no knowledge of the split between CART and IndyCar that began in 1996 and didn’t end until 2008. That split deeply impacted IndyCar, setting it back decades in terms of popularity.
Texts from NASCAR officials have been made public in the trial, including a meeting with NASCAR Vice Chairman Lesa France Kennedy writing, “the teams won’t get everything they want, and hopefully we can meet in the middle.”
O’Donnell’s response was, “I just asked for someone in the room to point out how any of our positions are going to grow the sport and positions us for a big rights renewal in the future.”
To that point, Phelps responded, “Productive? Insanity. Zero wins for the teams.” He also believed a charter proposal “must reflect a middle position or we are dead in the water.”
Co-owners of 23XI Racing, Denny Hamlin, (left) and Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer, Michael Jordan (right) at Talladega Superspeedway on October 06, 2024. (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images)
Getty Images
Front Row Motorsports and 23XI did not agree with the new charter the proposal and refused to sign, while the other NASCAR team organizations agreed to it. NASCAR has since taken away the charters for 23XI and Front Row Motorsports, who are operating as “Open” teams for each NASCAR race and are not protected for each NASCAR Cup Series race.
The NASCAR trial continues Thursday, December 4 and is expected to last a total of two weeks.