Fire on Fridays: Could NASCAR Retaliate Against 23XI & FRM?

Well, things escalated dramatically this week, didn’t they?

On Wednesday (Oct. 2), NASCAR was handed a potentially sport-altering antitrust lawsuit, filed jointly between 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports.

If this isn’t your first time hearing these two teams in the same sentence, that’s because it isn’t. The two teams were the only ones to hold out against NASCAR’s charter agreement, which the sanctioning body allegedly forced teams to sign within hours of receiving it at 5 p.m. ET on Sept. 6 before the playoff opener at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

While both 23XI and FRM have released joint and individual statements regarding the matter, NASCAR has yet to come out with a statement with its own. One shouldn’t expect it to either, considering it didn’t even really comment on the charter agreement debacle in early September.

It begs the question of how exactly NASCAR will respond to the matter. At a certain point, neither NASCAR nor 23XI and FRM will be able to comment due to whatever pending litigation lies in the case. But NASCAR likely won’t respond through PR statements or anything of the like.

Now, on the racetrack? That would be an interesting development.

Historically, NASCAR and the France family don’t like to be challenged. That was evident in the 1960s when it suspended two of its most popular drivers, Curtis Turner and Tim Flock, for attempting to unionize the drivers. When another attempt at unionization came about in 1969, then-owner and founder Bill France did everything in his power to ignore it, resulting in the infamous first race at Talladega Superspeedway when only three NASCAR Cup Series cars competed among a field of Sportsman Division cars.

However, in an era when social media is king and fan support is much higher than it was in the ’60s, taking action to outright ban 23XI and FRM would receive backlash from which it could potentially never recover. Plus, at a time when the Cup Series is already struggling to reach full 40-car fields, losing four full-time entries would only worsen the issue.

It only helps that 23XI has Michael Jordan. One of the most iconic athletes in the world with just as equal star power away from sports certainly could make a move like permanent suspension fall right back in NASCAR’s face.

No, if there was any way NASCAR could send a message to 23XI and FRM outside of the courtroom, it would be on the racetrack. Failing inspection, pit road penalties, and other rule violations to detriment the teams are certainly the most efficacious ways of doing so.

The two drivers who would have the most to lose in such a situation are Tyler Reddick and Denny Hamlin, for one simple reason: they’re fighting for the 2024 championship.

Hamlin, still looking for his first title with a likely limited number of years remaining due to his age, is once again in a position of elimination after the opening race of the Round of 12 at Kansas Speedway. With a subpar run, after which Hamlin admitted he wasn’t 100% mentally there during the race, he sits just 11 points above the cut line entering Talladega with the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL to follow.

Reddick, on the other hand, came into the playoffs as the regular-season champion and looked to have a ton of momentum entering the final 10 races. He started off strong with a sixth-place run at Atlanta Motor Speedway, but since has failed to finish higher than 20th. As it stands, he’s the first driver out in the Round of 12, sitting four points below the cut line entering two tracks he could easily win.

NASCAR could easily find ways to get these two drivers into an unrecoverable deficit on the wrong side of the cut line following the ROVAL and end both of their championship hunts. It would be crushing for both Hamlin, who would find yet another way to lose a title, and Reddick, who entered the playoffs with such high hopes.

Sure, NASCAR could also mess around with the other 23XI car of Bubba Wallace, and could also find ways to ruin the rest of the season for both FRM cars, driven by Michael McDowell and Todd Gilliland.

But in reality, NASCAR won’t do anything.

If this lawsuit ends up going to court and there’s reasonable cause to believe that NASCAR had tampered with either 23XI and/or FRM, that will only help the case that the two teams are trying to make, which would further hurt NASCAR in a lawsuit that revolves around antitrust.

Besides, for some teams like the No. 34 of McDowell, it wouldn’t make sense anyway. McDowell’s on his way to Spire Motorsports next season, so it wouldn’t be the flex one would think it is to target a driver who won’t even be with the team next year. In the case of Hamiln, who drives for Joe Gibbs Racing, the loss of a chance at a driver’s and owner’s title for a team that signed the charter agreement isn’t likely what NASCAR wants either.

23XI and FRM aren’t scared, anyway. Their joint statement even called NASCAR “monopolistic bullies” that will continue to be such until someone takes a stand. One caveat to not signing the charter agreement was that NASCAR would allegedly revoke the charters of teams who held out. If that’s a true statement, then neither team (both of whom are looking to expand to a third car in 2025) was rattled by that threat.

Hell, even filing this lawsuit in the first place says that they aren’t bothered by anything NASCAR could do to put them in their place. That’s why it wouldn’t surprise me if they refuse to settle and let this go to court. They have a great sports lawyer in Jeffrey Kessler, who has worked several antitrust lawsuits for major sports leagues in years past.

One small area of concern revolves around the expansion of 23XI and FRM. As stated, both teams have been looking to expand to a third car in 2025, with FRM already announcing the purchase of one of the charters of the soon-to-be-defunct Stewart-Haas Racing.

However, not much progress has been made for either party. FRM announced the signing of Noah Gragson, who will almost act as a replacement for McDowell, and Gilliland will also return. But no mention has been made about who will be the third teammate to Gragson and Gilliland. Some names have been thrown out sporadically, such as Zane Smith and Chandler Smith, but none of the rumors have had as much as an ounce of substance just yet.

And talks of a third car for 23XI have cooled off really since the Olympic break. After Corey Heim‘s name was tossed around for a while, it was Riley Herbst who emerged as the leading candidate for a third 23XI car. However, Herbst stated recently that he’s uncertain of his 2025 plans.

When you consider that NASCAR allegedly will revoke the charters of the two teams, plus the fact that it would need to approve any additional charter transactions, it makes one wonder if expansion is really in question for the two teams.

Even still, both teams plan to race in 2025, even if they have to do so as open cars. Though they have requested an injunction to allow them to race in 2025 as chartered cars until the legal process has concluded.

But you have to feel for the drivers in this situation. For McDowell, Gilliland, Reddick and Wallace (and eventually Gragson), this is a situation where all they do is drive the cars. Wallace even explained after the charter deal was signed how frustrating the whole situation was.

It’s got to be distracting to have this hanging over their heads as they close out the 2024 season and frustrating and/or anxiety inducing if NASCAR could find some sort of subtle retaliation against them.

Let’s make one thing clear: I do not believe NASCAR will do such a thing, and it shouldn’t. But again, history is chock full of times when NASCAR was challenged and it dropped some sort of nuclear option to remedy the situation — whether it was banning Turner and Flock, buying up the ARCA Menards Series in 2018 or otherwise.

Either way, grab your popcorn, folks. It’s a historic time to keep up with NASCAR.

Anthony Damcott

Anthony Damcott joined Frontstretch in March 2022. Currently, he is an editor and co-authors Fire on Fridays (Fridays); he is also the primary Truck Series reporter/writer and serves as an at-track reporter, among many other duties he takes on for the site. A proud West Virginia Wesleyan College alum from Akron, Ohio, Anthony is now a grad student. He is a theatre actor and fight-choreographer-in-training in his free time.

You can keep up with Anthony by following @AnthonyDamcott on X.