{"id":224501,"date":"2025-09-13T21:13:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T21:13:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/224501\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T21:13:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T21:13:14","slug":"nascar-addresses-court-case-texts-in-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/224501\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR addresses court case texts in meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"

During a meeting with team presidents last week, NASCAR President Steve O\u2019Donnell addressed text messages recently released in the sport\u2019s antitrust trial, people familiar with the matter told SBJ, underscoring the trickle-down effect the lawsuit is having on industry relations this season. <\/p>\n

Two NASCAR teams, 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports, have ensnared NASCAR in a bitter and high-stakes lawsuit that is scheduled to go to trial Dec. 1. One of the messages obtained during discovery<\/a> that has gained attention involves a conversation among several NASCAR Holdings executives in which O\u2019Donnell was quoted as saying the charter renewal offer at the time could be interpreted as a \u201cf***-the-teams\u201d proposition. <\/p>\n

After the message appeared in a court filing, some initially interpreted O\u2019Donnell was saying NASCAR should offer a bad deal, but people close to the sanctioning body have insisted he was saying the opposite. They say he was telling fellow NASCAR execs that some might not see the offer as generous enough to the teams. Due to the ensuing confusion, O\u2019Donnell addressed the matter during the meeting, sources say. He reiterated his contention it was a misinterpretation to have read the text as having been against the teams and that he was instead fighting for the teams, according to four people familiar with the matter.<\/p>\n

Still, taken in the big picture, the episode reveals the tensions that have built because of the antitrust lawsuit and how it is leading to distractions from the normal course of business. NASCAR declined comment when asked about the exchange at the meeting. <\/p>\n

The meeting was a lower-level affair than the quarterly Team Owner Council meetings that became enshrined in the sport when the charter system was enacted in 2016. The TOC meetings are held with not just senior team executives but also ownership, whereas the one last week was strictly with team presidents and some NASCAR execs. <\/p>\n

23XI president Steve Lauletta was at the meeting, while no one from FRM attended, the people said. FRM GM Jerry Freeze had a scheduling conflict that prevented him from attending, a person familiar with the matter said. <\/p>\n

FUTURE OF THE PLAYOFFS:<\/b> Meanwhile, other topics were addressed during the meeting, and some of the attendees came away with the feeling that NASCAR is likely to change its playoff format next year, two people said. But two separate people familiar with NASCAR\u2019s thinking cautioned against that interpretation and said the matter was still being deliberated. <\/p>\n

Still, this week, on NASCAR\u2019s in-house podcast, \u201cHauler Talk,\u201d<\/a> NASCAR spokesperson Mike Forde confirmed a change for next year was possible and added there is a meeting this week to try to whittle down the options to a final decision. One of the people familiar with NASCAR\u2019s thinking said there are still some decisions to come before anything is finalized. <\/p>\n

Some within NASCAR have come around to the idea that a one-off race to determine the season-long championship might not be the proper formula and are open to change, one of the people said. The series has been under pressure from parts of its core fanbase to re-evaluate whether its current format to determine its champion is fair.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"During a meeting with team presidents last week, NASCAR President Steve O\u2019Donnell addressed text messages recently released in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":224502,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[1406,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-224501","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-nascar","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115199056651999866","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}