The 2024 NASCAR Cup Series has been one of the more dramatic seasons in recent memory, and the drama was not limited to the track. Perhaps the biggest news of the year came when Charter negotiations fell apart, leading to a closely followed court battle between the dynastic France family that has ruled NASCAR since its inception and the teams of 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports. It's an unprecedented move, directly challenging the France family's iron grip over the sport in a move that sent shockwaves through the garage. Since the news that the two teams would sue, there's been one official court hearing, but numerous filings, and motions and even appeals. It's difficult to keep track of the ever-evolving situation, so we decided to lay it all out for you with an official timeline of events as this legal fight looms as a constant shadow over the pinnacle of stock car racing.
September 5: NASCAR sets hard deadline for teams to sign the 2025 Charter Agreement after months of stagnant negotiations.
September 6: 23XI and FRM reveal that they refused to sign the 2025 Charter Agreement with 23XI claiming that they "did not have an opportunity to fairly bargain for a new Charter contract."
October 2: 23XI/FRM jointly file an antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR and the France family over Charter dispute. They retained prominent antitrust attorney Jeffrey Kessler, accusing the sport's leadership of showcasing "anti-competitive and monopolistic control of the sport." They also provided a list of ways NASCAR showcased such behaviors and accused them of acting in a way to "unfairly benefit them at the expense of team owners, drivers, sponsors, partners, and fans." It went as far as to say that the France family ran the sport as "monopolistic bullies" in their dynastic rule over the sport since its inception over 75 years ago.
October 5: Denny Hamlin shares with the media that friend and 23XI co-owner Michael Jordan sent him a clip from the movie "Moneyball," which includes the quote: "The first one through the wall always get bloody." Hamlin went on to say that he hopes the lawsuit brings change to the way NASCAR is run, indicating that they won't back down.
October 9: 23XI/FRM files a motion for a preliminary injunction, seeking to keep their charters for the 2025 season while the lawsuit is ongoing. On the same day, the two teams also filed a motion for expedited discovery, requesting "immediate access to documents and files from NASCAR executives." Previously, team attorney Kessler indicated that it could be one to two years before the case goes to trial.
October 16: NASCAR responds to 23XI/FRM request for an expedited discovery, stating that they are moving forward with 32 charters for 2025 (as opposed to the usual 36).
October 23: NASCAR files response to 23XI/FRM's request for a preliminary injunction to protect their charters, stating that antitrust laws are to protect competition and it "does not require successful sports enterprises to admit every team that wants to participate or protect teams that do not want to compete."
October 30: 23XI/FRM hit back in their own response, citing Tony Stewart's failed Superstar Racing Experience venture and the way SRX had to operate as an example of NASCAR's exclusionary tactics.
October 31: The motion for an expedited discovery to acquire relevant NASCAR documents ahead of the preliminary injunction is denied.
November 4: U.S. District Court Judge Frank D. Whitney holds a hearing for the preliminary injunction to keep charters, listening to arguments from both sides. 23XI co-owners Michael Jordan and Hamlin were among those in attendance, as was NASCAR chairman and CEO Jim France and longtime NASCAR executive Mike Helton. Jeffrey Kessler, lead counsel for 23XI/FRM and Chris Yates, lead counsel for NASCAR, both laid out their case in federal court. A point of contention was the clause in the 2025 Charter Agreement that forbid teams who signed it from suing NASCAR for any reason.
November 8: Judge Frank D. Whitney denies the request for a preliminary injunction on the eve of championship weekend, stating that the teams did not meet their burden of proof in failing to clearly indicate that they would suffer irreparable harm due to the loss of charters. The judge stated that they must "demonstrate that irreparable injury is likely in the absence of the injunction while a showing of the 'possibility of irreparable harm' is not sufficient."
November 10: Hamlin states that it is 'TBD' regarding 23XI participation in the pre-season Clash at Bowman Gray and the Daytona 500 if they aren't able to keep their charters.
November 12: 23XI/FRM file a notice of appeal after the initial preliminary injunction ruling by Judge Whitney and the U.S. District Court.
November 16: The sanctioning body removes an anticompetitive provision from its rulebook, allowing 23XI and FRM to compete as open teams in 2025. The move ended speculation that NASCAR may deny the teams entry onto the 2025 grid due to the lawsuit.
November 18: NASCAR responds to 23XI/FRM's motion for an expedited appeal, saying there is no urgency that would justify such a tight timeline. The teams wanted the oral argument to take place on December 13 while NASCAR requested that it be no sooner than January 26 (just one week before the Clash at Bowman Gray).
November 20: Teams choose to drop appeal of the initial preliminary injunction ruling as they make plans to approach it from a different angle.
November 26: The teams re-file their motion for a preliminary injunction, citing "new circumstances" and mention the fact that there are charter deals up in the air with the closure of Stewart-Haas Racing, and that they have less than a month to close those deals. SHR planned to sell one of its charters to FRM and another to 23XI. A week earlier, 23XI confirmed their intentions to run a third car in 2025 with Riley Herbst.
December 2: NASCAR files motion to dismiss the 23XI/FRM lawsuit, claiming that it is "nothing more than dissatisfaction with business negotiations that didn't go their way." They cited four official reasons as to why it should be dismissed, and among them was noting that several of the expressed conduct concerns cited in the lawsuit took place more than four years ago and are outside the statute of limitations. They also claim that 23XI considered trying to engineer a boycott of NASCAR events and negative media campaigns with the goal of adversely affecting the sport's new "media rights negotiations." NASCAR also claims that they were the ones threatening and coercing the other teams, not the sanctioning body as alleged in the original lawsuit filing.
December 11: The case was reassigned from Judge Frank D. Whitney (who denied the first preliminary injunction) to Judge Kenneth D. Bell for unnamed reasons.
December 12: FRM claims NASCAR told them the team's purchase of one of SHR's charters was approved but that it wouldn't be allowed to go through unless the lawsuit was dropped. FRM is expected to expand to three cars in 2025 but has yet to announce it. They revealed their intentions to purchase a SHR charter all the way back in May. In the same filing, SHR's Joe Custer said that NASCAR assured him that the charter transfers would be approved and that time is running out to complete the sale. In modern NASCAR, charters go for roughly $30 million dollars each.
December 13: NASCAR says that they were assured by FRM in September that they would sign the 2025 Charter Agreement, but "reversed course" in later filing lawsuit. In doing so, NASCAR says FRM "refuses to be bound by multiple provisions of the signed SHR Charter."
