With new information out in the open, does NASCAR President Steve O’Donnell look like a hero or the villain?
Another day, another NAScourt update unfolds.
Earlier this week, 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports filed a response to NASCAR’s latest summary judgment request. In the filing, the teams essentially reiterated their old arguments. However, there was a twist: a new message exchange between NASCAR President Steve O’Donnell and EVP Ben Kennedy as O’Donnell watched the PGA Tour/LIV Golf drama play out in real time.
In the message, O’Donnell waxes poetic about how he doesn’t want to see NASCAR essentially have its grip on the sport ripped away by outside entities. The skinny of how this message chain is relevant lies in this simply dichotomy: NASCAR sees this message as its president doing his job and preparing for worst-case scenarios, and the teams see this message chain as NASCAR trying to further a monopolistic agenda.
I’m not here to weigh in on who is right or wrong between those two sides; that’s for a judge to eventually do. Instead, my question is more about how this message has endeared O’Donnell to the fan base.
A quick scroll through the replies on any social media post mentioning this message chain will tell you that it’s just about as divided as the teams and organization are — and that’s not just interesting, it’s also important.
Because it shows that there is some support for O’Donnell, at least from the fan base. After all, he’s given them some good news in the recent weeks. Just in last week’s column we mentioned the soon-to-come horsepower increase and change in playoff format. It’s evident that O’Donnell realizes that the ship has holes, and the fact that he’s been vocal about his willingness to fight for it to stay afloat has done some good for his public perception.
But would a judgment in this case change that? All signs thus far have pointed toward this entire thing playing out in a courtroom, which will only make things even more bloody. If we reach that point, what will O’Donnell be painted as? The hero or the villain?
Today, at least, he’s a hero. With comments surfacing along the lines of “that’s what I would want my president to do,” and “at least someone cares about the sport,” it’s hard to deny that he’s won some favor within the fan base, and not even necessarily of his own accord. That might not be enough to sway a judge, but it might be a step toward swaying public opinion. All eyes in the sport should be glued to whatever the outcome of this case is, and by that logic, those same eyes should be glued to how the sport treats O’Donnell afterward.
The racing gods have always been a wishy-washy bunch, and anyone can go from hero to zero at any given time.
What in the world is going on with Ty Dillon’s (ex) spotter?
Fans (especially those of the No. 24) will remember last weekend when William Byron slammed into the back of Ty Dillon’s car as Dillon, who was off the pace, attempted to slow down and enter pit lane. The crash led to Byron being 15 points below the cut line entering this weekend.
Kaulig Racing moved rather abruptly in its decision regarding the matter. By decision, I mean that Dillon’s spotter, Joe White, was fired the second he stepped off the bus at Talladega Superspeedway this weekend.
After he exited the infield care center, Byron was quick to mention that, as far as he knew, his own spotter had never been informed of Dillon’s attempt to pit. After he was fired, White said in an interview with The Athletic he did, in fact, tell the spotter of the No. 24 that Dillon intended to pit.
While the abrupt firing of a key member of any team never goes over well, especially in this fashion, it especially doesn’t help that Kaulig CEO Chris Rice hopped on SiriusXM before White was fired and said, rather definitively, that the wreck was not the No. 10’s fault, that it was green flag racing and these things happen.
It’s a double whammy for Kaulig, then. Not only did it fire a spotter its CEO said was part of a team who bore no fault in the accident, but it also did so in an abrupt manner, with no warning, after he made the trip all the way to Alabama for a race at which it knew he was never going to work.
White has made light of the situation on X after the news broke, saying that he’s returning to his own body shop full time for the moment. As for Byron, the crash very well could cost him a shot at the championship. In a year where Murphy’s law seems to have reigned supreme for Hendrick Motorsports, this is just the latest chapter in a saga that has stretched most of the 2025 season.
Is that worth a spotter losing his job, especially if he did everything he could do in the moment, though? No. Sure, people have been fired for less in this sport, but this seems rather extreme. This reads as White being a victim of something much larger than his spot on the spotter stand, and it reeks from a PR standpoint. And until White finds another landing spot or does another interview or two, that’s how it will stay.
Will this weekend’s broadcast strategy pay off?
For the first time in 25 years, all three NASCAR races this weekend will be on network TV. Huzzah!
With one caveat, of course: They’re all on different networks. The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race will be broadcast on FOX, the NASCAR Xfinity Series on The CW and the NASCAR Cup Series on NBC.
Having all three races on network television should, in theory, provide quite the nice ratings boost to what as been a truly pitiful few weeks of stat crunching. The painful numbers reached a new boundary last week, though, as NHRA’s NFL lead-in caused the drag racing series to best the Cup Series in viewership for the day.
Yet all three races being on different networks might only result in this great opportunity falling flat on its face. The Xfinity Series has called The CW home all season long, but this is only the sixth Cup race of the season to be aired on broadcast TV channels, with only two more to go afterward. That’s the fewest since 1998, for those counting.
More than anyone else, NASCAR needs this one to land. It’s Talladega weekend during the playoffs. The infield should be lively, the broadcast should be top notch and the venue is like no other. It’s as NASCAR as NASCAR can get. If the sport can’t bring in real viewership this weekend, it’s only going to highlight an already rapidly growing issue.
The guess is we’ll see a slight boost, but nowhere close to what NASCAR would want. Unfortunately, this TV deal has yet to play into the organization’s favor from a viewership standpoint, and that doesn’t figure to magically remedy itself this weekend.
Is Brenden Queen the best face for RAM?
I’m going to keep this short and sweet: hell yes. His Butterbean nickname alone makes him stand out from the crowd, never mind the fact that he’s one of, if not the hottest commodity coming out of the ARCA Menards Series right now.
To put it in wrestling terms, he’s the perfect babyface, a solid, young, engaging driver that can be a great public-facing racer for a fresh looking team and manufacturer. He’s the first driver to join the new RAM stable, with a few more announcements surely to come in the coming weeks.
With Dodge eying a comeback to the sport, it can’t be overstated how important it is for it to have likable drivers early and often. With Queen being so young, it’s evident that both Kaulig and RAM see him as a future driver in the higher series, too.
Veterans will undoubtedly be added to the stable sooner rather than later, but Queen is the absolute best case scenario for Kaulig and RAM right now. Here’s to hoping he pans out, too, because not many get the chance to be the face representing one of the sport’s most important comebacks in decades.
Tanner Marlar is a staff writer for Sports Illustrated’s OnSI Network, a contributor for multiple automotive news outlets, an award-winning sports columnist and talk show host, and a PhD. student at a premier college of media and mass communication. Tanner began working with Frontstretch in 2022, covering the O'Reilly Auto Parts Series.
It seems either a lot of information about the spotter being fired has been omitted in this article, or is not known at this time.
From the rather thin amount of data in this article, I draw this information, though again, possibly more knowledge is out there:
We don’t know if Kaulig’s spotter was instructed to notify Byron’s spotter.
We don’t know if Kaulig’s spotter told Byron’s spotter.
We don’t know if more information came to light during Kaulig’s spotter’s trip to the track.
We don’t know the history of this spotter from a performance and disciplinary standpoint.
We don’t know if Kaulig was pressured into this decision.
We don’t know if Kaulig viewed this as a PR move.
Given all the missing information, it seems more than a little irresponsible to imply or infer this was a crass decision on Spire’s part. It’s quite possible this is true. But it’s also quite possible it’s not. Whether it’s sports or full on news groups, I do tire of news organizations going from point A to points B, C, D, and E without facts to back it up.
I gave you a link to a story in which he did, in fact, say that he told the No. 24 spotter they intended to pit. As of right now, that’s about the extent of the public information we have. If we didn’t have any sort of commentary on the situation, what would be the reaction then? Next time, I’ll see if I can get all parties involved out for dinner do we can hash it out.
Yes, the spotter who was just fired said that. Does his word mean it is verified as truth?
Possibly you are so naive you think people never lie. Some do say that ignorance is bliss.
Report the facts. It’s quite simple. We currently have one person’s word, who was just fired. I know many people who have lied about reasons for their termination. I also know many people who were fired without proper cause.
We do not know the reasons given to the spotter from Spire for the termination, and we do not know the facts which led to this decision. Yet the article clearly takes a side here.
Set up your dinner party. You may learn a thing or two. But given your tone, and the strange angle you have taken about this, you don’t strike me as the type who learns much of anything.
Has Byron’s spotter said anything? He may be staying silent because of professional courtesy.
My understanding is Byron’s team has indicated they received no communication from Dillon’s team. Again, that’s their word against Dillon’s spotter, so I’m not going to present that as fact.
O’Donnell’s text shows that the other teams made a mistake not sticking together with 23XI and Front Row. That is NASCAR all but confirming that they do not have much value without the race teams. Had the teams stuck together and held out in September of last year, this lawsuit would not have happened and they would have gotten most of what they wanted.
Well said. Yet somehow, many still support NASCAR in the court of public opinion. Mystifies me.
O’Donnell is correct and a winner. He does what every C-Level Executive should do and that is evaluating and “thinking out-loud.” Who cares what “social media commentators” pontificate, or for that matter here in this forum. Credentials are important. Legal background, work and education experiences are the important to understanding the perspective of the owners of what is essentially a private company.
This thing will not be over after the jury trial or arbitration but after the 4th Circuit rules — and that will be in NASCAR’S favor.
NA$CAR wants all the viewers to see what a demo derby looks like and get a lot of crashes for their ads.
Glad I read this article so I know where to find the races. However I no longer plan my weekends around the schedule and the weather is supposed to be nice I may catch the end but I’m also NOT a fan of restricter plate races
Why didn’t Ty stick his hand out the window that he was pitting? Even if the spotters are involved, redundancy isn’t a bad thing.