NASCAR Lawsuit: Judge Rules in Favor of Non-Lawsuit Teams in Information Disagreement with NASCAR

What’s Happening?

Judge Kenneth D. Bell has ruled in favor of the 12 teams from which NASCAR’s legal team is requesting financial documents that they deem “critical” to their ongoing lawsuit with 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports.

Judge ordered the non-suing teams to provide the financial information in the manner that those teams had offered to provide to NASCAR (NASCAR had wanted more detailed from each team). Only attorneys and their experts can view it: pic.twitter.com/9jY4fhJodP

— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) June 25, 2025

Initially, NASCAR’s legal team requested that the teams turn in eleven categories of documents by Apr. 24. Still, the teams pushed back at this broad request, suggesting in a recent filing that the items NASCAR is requesting go “far beyond what even NASCAR has suggested it could possibly need.”

Of the 13 charter-owning teams that NASCAR requested documents from, Kaulig Racing was the only one to provide NASCAR with these documents. A filing on Tuesday laid out what the other 12 teams’ terms and what they were willing to turn over to NASCAR, with the team’s key offer being “annual top-line financial data (total revenue, total costs, and net profits/losses).”

Tuesday afternoon, the two parties met for a hearing, with a ruling expected Wednesday. According to Wednesday’s ruling, Judge Bell is ruling in favor of the rather slim offer the teams have given NASCAR, per the filing:

1. On or before Noon on June 27, 2025, NASCAR and the Teams shall jointly select an independent accounting firm to serve as a neutral party to facilitate the production of anonymized information. In the event the Parties are unable to select an accounting firm, they should each suggest one name to the Court by that deadline.
2. As soon as reasonably practicable (as the Teams committed to do at oral argument), each of the Non-Party Racing Teams must separately provide to the chosen accountant its annual top-line financial data (total revenue, total costs, and net profits/losses) on an anonymized, average per-car basis for each year dating back to 2014. Sponsorship income must be included by the Teams as part of total revenue.
3. To avoid the production of irrelevant information, the Teams are required to make a good faith effort to limit the financial information produced to operations associated with fielding full-time cars in the Cup Series (for example, revenue or expenses tied to ancillary business lines or non-Cup Series racing activities should not be produced).
4. The Accountant should be directed to confidentially produce to NASCAR – but not to the Non-Party Teams – a spreadsheet listing the per-car annual averages for each team without identifying the team associated with each set of numbers. The document must include a Highly Confidential Attorney’s Eyes Only designation that also permits use by NASCAR’s and Plaintiffs’ experts.
5. The cost of the Accountant shall be borne by NASCAR. Otherwise, all parties must bear their own expenses, including attorneys’ fees.

This is a small branch in the discovery portion of NASCAR’s ongoing lawsuit with teams 23XI Racing and FRM. Of the 15 chartered teams in NASCAR, these two held out on signing the 2025 Charter Agreement in September, with the two filing a joint antitrust suit against NASCAR on Oct. 2

The lawsuit has splintered into several different storylines, including a battle for charter status during the 2025 season, a countersuit from NASCAR, and this back-and-forth between non-party teams and NASCAR. The timeline linked below covers all angles of this lawsuit extensively.

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