1. 23XI Racing, Front Row Motorsports are taking NASCAR to court. What now?
In unprecedented news, it was announced on Oct. 2 that 23XI Racing and Front Row Racing were jointly suing NASCAR in an antitrust lawsuit, citing “anti-competitive practices to prevent fair competition in the sport,” among other reasons. FRM and 23XI were the lone holdouts that didn’t sign NASCAR’s 2025-2031 charter agreement in early September, and this legal battle is now heading to the courthouse.
Getting a new charter deal squared away has been of the utmost concern since the start of the year, but not just for sake of getting it done. It’s vital to get a charter deal squared away that both NASCAR and all the teams can agree on, and all season it’s been impasse after impasse. Now, things are going to get ugly before they get any better.
It would be splendid if there was a crystal ball that would tell us how and when everything will get resolved, but not one person has the answer. We don’t know what’s next, and we are currently in unprecedented times.
Unprecedented because we’ve yet to see conflict between the teams and the sanctioning body to this degree.
Throughout all its history, NASCAR has had the final say. When Curtis Turner and Tim Flock attempted to form a driver’s union in 1961, they were initially banned for life. When the biggest teams and drivers in the sport refused to race in the inaugural 1969 event at Talladega over safety concerns, the show went on with new teams and drivers taking their place.
Now, its fate rests in the court of law.
To even get to this point, 23XI and FRM had to play with fire. By refusing to sign the 2025-2031 charter agreement at NASCAR’s self-imposed deadline, they ran the risk of losing their charters entirely.
Clearly, it was a risk they were willing to take and a fight they were willing to bring.
In simplistic terms, this can go one of three ways: the two parties agree to a settlement or the court rules in favor of one side over the other.
Given NASCAR’s position as a private company, its books would be made public in the event of a court case. If that’s something it wants to avoid, a settlement would be the most likely option. But if the case goes to court with a judge’s ruling, what will happen in either scenario?
If the case is ruled in NASCAR’s favor, what will happen to the teams that took it to court? If the case is ruled in the teams’ favor, how different will NASCAR look in a post-court case reality? At this point, there are far more questions than answers.
But the show must go on, and there’s a weekend of racing at Talladega Superspeedway to be had. We’re walking on untrodden ground, and approaching this situation one week and one race at a time is all we can do.
2. Is Trackhouse having second thoughts about letting Zane Smith go?
It’s not an exaggeration to say that the Spire Motorsports No. 71 team was the worst on the grid to start the season.
It’s difficult for any promising rookie to adjust to Cup Series racing, but it was a rough, rough start to the year for Zane Smith. Following the Coca-Cola 600, he had 10 finishes of 29th or worse in 14 starts and sat dead last in points among full-time drivers.
Trackhouse Racing acquired a third Cup charter for 2025 (Smith was on loan to Spire), but with the rise of Shane van Gisbergen in the Xfinity Series, there was suddenly a logjam at Trackhouse, with four drivers vying for three Cup seats. Van Gisbergen got the nod in August to drive the team’s brand-new No. 88 car next season, while Smith was left as the odd one out and in search of a new ride.
It’s hard to fault Trackhouse considering the potential van Gisbergen has as a full-time Cup driver — especially on road courses — but in the last three months, Smith has brushed off the bad start and has done what all great rookies do: learn.
A surprise runner-up finish in the fuel mileage extravaganza at Nashville Superspeedway kickstarted the second half of Smith’s season, and he’s shown tremendous growth since the start of July.
After recording 10 finishes of 29th or worse in the first 14 races of the season, Smith has zero finishes worse than 29th in his last 13 starts. In that same timespan he has four top 10s, with a runner-up at Nashville, a seventh at Michigan, a fifth at Watkins Glen and a 10th at Kansas last weekend. He now has a remarkable average finish of 14.1 in the last 13 races and has completely righted the ship on his rookie season.
He’s shown so much growth as a driver in such a short amount of time that one has to wonder if Trackhouse is having second thoughts about letting him go.
Even if that’s the case, something had to give. But while Smith finishes out the year and explores all his options, his dramatic improvement has shown that he’s a Cup level talent, and that will only help in his search for a ride next season.
3. Are changes in the DVP policy on the horizon?
It feels like eons ago given all the news that has dropped this week, but NASCAR’s DVP policy was under heavy scrutiny once again at Kansas, as Josh Berry was unable to drive away from a multi-car crash and ruled out of the race on lap 1 — even though his car had minimal damage outside of four flat tires.
Berry was puzzled and confused as to why he was ruled out of the race by NASCAR, just like most onlookers following the situation.
NASCAR followed the proper protocol, as strange as it looked, which states that cars with crash damage are ruled out if they unable to drive away from the scene of the crash. The lone exception is if a driver has flat tires after a spin, in which case NASCAR would tow the car back to pit road.
NASCAR declared in that moment that Berry’s No. 4 car was damaged from the wreck and ineligible for the tow back to pit road as a result.
That said, the rule needs to be fixed or at least tweaked in some way. Berry’s car had next to no damage outside of the flat tires and there was zero reason why it couldn’t continue on with the race.
Fortunately, it appears that NASCAR will do just that and reexamine the rule in the off season.
The best way to solve this issue would be redesigning the Next Gen car so that it isn’t immobilized with four flat tires, but this is at least a start.
For now, let’s hope that this policy doesn’t send anyone else home with an early exit this season. Because if a championship contender is ruled out of a race with a car that’s 100% drivable, it will not be a pretty sight.
4. Is anyone safe at Talladega this weekend?
With Ross Chastain playing playoff spoiler at Kansas last weekend, not one playoff driver will be relaxed heading into Talladega on Sunday (Oct. 6).
| Rank | Driver | Points | Cut line |
| 1 | William Byron | 3074 | +34 |
| 2 | Ryan Blaney | 3068 | +28 |
| 3 | Christopher Bell | 3068 | +28 |
| 4 | Kyle Larson | 3058 | +18 |
| 5 | Denny Hamlin | 3051 | +11 |
| 6 | Alex Bowman | 3048 | +8 |
| 7 | Chase Elliott | 3044 | +4 |
| 8 | Joey Logano | 3044 | +4 |
| 9 | Tyler Reddick | 3040 | -4 |
| 10 | Daniel Suarez | 3030 | -14 |
| 11 | Chase Briscoe | 3019 | -25 |
| 12 | Austin Cindric | 3015 | -29 |
William Byron is sitting pretty with a 34-point lead over the cut line, while Ryan Blaney and Christopher Bell are also doing well at 28 to the good. Chase Briscoe and Austin Cindric are in the direst positions, as poor finishes at Kansas have left them more than 25 points in debt.
But if there’s anything we’ve learned at Talladega in the last 11 years of the elimination format, it’s that no one is safe.
No one.
You don’t even need to Talladega to show it.
Remember the Xfinity Series regular season finale at Bristol Motor Speedway? Justin Allgaier entered the race with a 43-point lead over Cole Custer in the regular season standings, and it looked like he would cakewalk to the 15 playoff points.
Instead, two early wrecks derailed Allgaier’s night to a 30th-place finish, while Custer clutched up with a win to win the regular season title by a mere three points.
For the Cup race the following night, Daniel Suarez entered Bristol with a 35-point advantage to the cut, only to find himself at risk of elimination all night with a horrendous 31st-place outing. He ultimately advanced, but it wasn’t without a ton of anxiety-inducing moments.
For Byron, Blaney and Bell, an early crash or a single-digit points outing is all it would take for them fall back into the clutches of the cut line. For Cindric and Briscoe, a ton of stage points and a solid top-five, top-10 finish — if not a win — would put them back in the ballgame.
No one is safe, and no one knows how this race will go down. We’ll just have to see where all the chips fall at the conclusion of Sunday’s race.
Stephen Stumpf is the NASCAR Content Director for Frontstretch and is a three-year veteran of the site. His weekly column is “Stat Sheet,” and he formerly wrote "4 Burning Questions" for three years. He also writes commentaries, contributes to podcasts, edits articles and is frequently at the track for on-site coverage.
Can find on Twitter @stephen_stumpf.
Rumor and Jayski have Zane Smith headed to Front Row. That’s good move for Zane if it’s true. The one that blows my mind is replacing Daniel Hemric with Ty Dillon. Someone at Kaulig is living in Bizarro World.
No, it means that Pop Pop has lots of $$$$$$ to pay Kaulig.
DVP tweak is pretty easy. Cars in a wreck with minmal to “some” damage and 4 flats get taken to pit road. Only thing crew can do to the car is replace tires, fuel the car and ensure for no tire rubs by manual pulling out the fenders. Team gets one chance at this too. If car goes back out and there is a tire rub or other issue. Team either takes the green flag and pits under green or race is done.
No tools, no bondo(tape), nothing else. Car gets back on track and races. If all is good any further repairs can be done on subsequent pits stops as car made minimum speed just like now.
It is literally this easy NASCAR.
NA$CAR only makes decisions that make $en$e for them!