23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports have filed a motion for summary judgment on NASCAR’s counterclaims against them, stating “NASCAR’s counterclaims lack legal and factual merit.”
NASCAR filed counterclaims March 5 against 23XI Racing, Front Row Motorsports and 23XI Racing co-owner Curtis Polk.
Friday’s motion by 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports for a summary judgment would only impact the counterclaim. The antitrust lawsuit by the teams against NASCAR remains scheduled for a Dec. 1 trial.
In filing the counterclaim in March, NASCAR stated that 23XI Racing, Front Row Motorsports and Polk “embarked on a strategy to threaten, coerce, and extort NASCAR into meeting their demands for better contract and financial terms” regarding the 2025 Charter Agreement.
NASCAR stated in court documents that the two teams and Curtis Polk “embarked on a strategy to threaten, coerce, and extort NASCAR into meeting their demands for better contract and financial terms.”
23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports stated in its request Saturday for summary judgment that NASCAR’s counterclaims are “another example of NASCAR’s litigation gamesmanship, designed to retaliate against Plaintiffs. Summary judgment should be granted now, so that the parties can plan for the December 1, 2025, trial with the knowledge that NASCAR’s baseless counterclaim is not going to distract from the purpose of those proceedings.”
Here is a closer look at Friday’s filing:
What is a summary judgment?
It is a judgment by the court without a full trial.
Why does this matter?
If the court rules in favor of the teams, then the Dec. 1 trial would not have to include time to argue the counterclaims before a jury.
What did NASCAR state in its March 5 counterclaim?
NASCAR alleged that 23XI Racing, Front Row Motorsports and Polk used devious methods to force NASCAR to give all teams a better deal with the charter agreement.
NASCAR stated in court documents: “The conspiracy and agreement consists of an agreement to engage in concerted action among Counterclaim Defendants and others to limit competition, increase payments, and otherwise demand their preferred terms for Charter teams by agreeing on the terms they would offer and agree to when collectively negotiating the 2025 Charter Agreements with NASCAR.”
What did 23XI Racing, Front Row Motorsports and Polk state in its request for summary judgment?
“The discovery record demonstrates that NASCAR cannot raise a genuine issue of material fact in support of its assertion that the Counterclaim-Defendants participated in any conspiracy in unreasonable restraint of trade through joint negotiations for the 2025 Charter Agreement.
“On the contrary, the undisputed evidence (including NASCAR admissions) shows there was never any agreement among the racing teams to prevent NASCAR from pursuing individual negotiations. In fact, NASCAR employed such individual negotiations to obtain the one-sided 2025 Charter Agreement terms that NASCAR itself has repeatedly declared to be good for both NASCAR and the entire sport of stock car racing.”
What else did 23XI Racing, Front Row Motorsports and Polk state in court documents requesting summary judgment?
Regarding the increase in media revenues for teams in the 2025 charter agreement, they wrote about how many teams had been losing money, stating: “But NASCAR cannot show that this modest change in revenue sharing—made necessary by the continued dire economic condition of most chartered racing teams, 75% of whom lost money in 2024. …”
What did the request for summary judgment state about the counterclaims against Polk?
“NASCAR’s retaliatory effort to single him out for potential individual antitrust liability is disproven by NASCAR’s own allegations. NASCAR alleges that the harm to competition stems from the Charter system itself, which was created in 2016 — i.e., four years before Mr. Polk became involved in the sport. … Indeed, even after Mr. Polk joined the teams’ joint negotiation efforts in 2022, and eventually became one of four members of the (negotiating committee), the undisputed evidence shows that the other teams often did not agree with Mr. Polk’s views and took individual positions in the negotiations that preclude as a matter of law any inference of an “agreement” with him.”
What did NASCAR’s March 5 counterclaim say about Polk?
NASCAR stated in court documents: “Polk’s individual role was at the very center of the plot to use collusive behavior to extract more favorable commercial terms from NASCAR in the Charter negotiations. These strategies and threats included, but were and are not limited to, a group boycott and threatened group boycotts of NASCAR events, including televised qualifying races, negative media campaigns, meetings with at least one NASCAR media partner to affect ongoing NASCAR negotiations for a new media rights agreement, and threats/coercion to other team owners to “not break ranks.”
What are the gold codes referenced in the motion for summary judgment?
The motion states: “ … in its ‘Gold Codes’ documents, NASCAR considered exploiting its market power over the input market to unilaterally change its model to eliminate the teams entirely and dominate the sport completely by entering its own cars and drivers in the Cup Series.”
The Gold Codes was a document from June 2024 that listed responses by the sanctioning body should there be a disruption by teams as negotiations took place on the Charter Agreement.
The document states: “Teams may use ‘disruption’ as a negotiating tactic, this presentation is not meant to capture all possible scenarios but rather present response options and mitigation techniques to those actions act may affect the on-track product.”
The document looked at responses by NASCAR on “near term event boycotts … operational interference … (and) longer term alternatives.”
It included how NASCAR might handle things should teams boycott practice or a race before or during the event.
It also explored the notion of NASCAR having its own cars, drivers and teams for a series. Those included floor plans for a building to house the cars, financial overviews on cost for personnel, building, car parts, pit crew and travel for 36 entries and 30 entries.
It anticipated costs of $72,000,000 for 36 driver salaries, costs of $1,500,000 per 36 teams for nine road crew members per team, costs of $1,500,000 per 36 teams for 12 shop crew members per team.
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