TC Daily Pit Stop: 23XI/Front Row Spar With NASCAR in Ugly Thursday Injunction Hearing
TC Daily Pit Stop: Friday, August 29th, 2025
NASCAR, 23XI/Front Row Spar in Ugly Thursday Injunction Hearing
In an explosive injunction hearing on Thursday in uptown Charlotte, the gloves were off for NASCAR and 23XI Racing/Front Row Motorsports. During the two-hour hearing, internal text message conversations and documents were revealed, which painted a picture of how Steve Phelps and Steve O’Donnell felt about the ongoing Charter negotiations behind the scenes.
It also showed how Michael Jordan felt about other teams that signed the Charter Agreement.
According to a May 2024 text thread, Steve Phelps was critical of negotiations as an “Amanda” chart showed there were no wins for the teams to be had in the draft of the charter agreement at that time, and O’Donnell said that the offer presented would have been a ‘F—- the team’ offer. According to Kessler, when teams refused to sign the agreement, the offer eventually used as the “take it or leave it” deal was the ‘F—- the teams’ offer.
After learning that Joe Gibbs Racing had signed the Charter Agreement, Michael Jordan called them ‘f—-ers’ in an internal 23XI Racing group chat, and when he learned of other teams signing, he called them ‘p—-ies’.
Judge Bell will rule next week on whether or not 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports will be allowed to operate as Chartered teams for the remainder of the 2025 season as they await the December 1 antitrust lawsuit trial against NASCAR.
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