There is a juicy bit of irony to the historic antitrust lawsuit brought against NASCAR last week by the unlikely combination of 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports.
NASCAR probably wanted to avoid a postseason full of headlines about the lack of a new charter agreement between it and the NASCAR Cup Series’ 13 full-time race teams.
After two years of back and forth of negotiations, NASCAR put its foot down in early September, according to the lawsuit.
“With little warning, NASCAR sent a final, take-it-or-leave-it version of the 2025 Charter Agreement to the teams at approximately 5:00 p.m. on September 6, 2024, and told the teams they had a 6:00 p.m. deadline to sign the more than 100-page agreement or risk not having a charter for 2025,” it read.
“Outrage” from the teams resulted in NASCAR extending that deadline to midnight.
Look, I like to read. I had a college-level reading level in junior high.
But there’s no way on God’s green Earth I would be able to — or I would force someone — to read an over 100-page important legal document adequately in six hours, let alone one.
Especially since I’m not a lawyer.
Then all but two teams signed it.
Rick Hendrick signed it because he was “tired” of the negotiation process.
To NASCAR, that was probably the point. To beat the teams into submission.
The lawsuit cited media reports about owner reactions to the deal.
“One team described its signing as ‘coerced,’ and another said it was ‘under duress,’” the suit continued. “A third team said, NASCAR ‘put a gun to our head[s]’ and we ‘had to sign.’ A fourth described NASCAR’s tactics as that of a ‘communist regime.’”
(Sidebar: One of my favorite parts of this whole lawsuit is guessing which owner said the “communist regime” line.)
Whether it was a combination of hardball tactics and the quality of the deal NASCAR presented, the lawsuit came down the pipe.
In it came words I wouldn’t have been able to use in a sentence in junior high or now, like “monopsonistic” and other forms of the word “monopoly.”
There’s a lot packed into the lawsuit’s 46 pages alleging the unfair practices of NASCAR and the France family.
And it’s not going to end anytime soon. It might not dominate the conversation each week, but it will always be lingering in the background.
Especially during Championship Week.
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