What’s Happening?

During the first day of 23XI Racing/Front Row Motorsports and NASCAR’s antitrust trial, 23XI Racing co-owner and NASCAR veteran Denny Hamlin alleged that NASCAR was at fault for the closure of a long-time team at the turn of the decade.

What Was Germain Racing?

It’s not a secret that sponsorship is the make-or-break in NASCAR. While some teams have partnerships that technically date back decades, such as Hendrick Motorsports and Axalta, other teams are lucky enough to have an in-house sponsor, such as the Haas Factory Team and Haas CNC.

Unfortunately, other teams have a more difficult time finding the sponsor funds to run their operation in the green. In fact, even NASCAR’s fanbase rejoices when an underdog team or driver, such as Ross Chastain, scores a major sponsor like Busch Beer.

Entering the 2020s, one of the most well-known and longest-running sponsorships in NASCAR was between insurance provider GEICO and underdog team Germain Racing.

This partnership began in NASCAR’s lower divisions in 2008 and jumped to the team’s first effort in the NASCAR Cup Series in 2009. In 2010, the team, alongside GEICO, entered its first of 11 full-time seasons in the NASCAR Cup Series.

In 388 starts, the No. 13 car would never win a race and finished no higher than third, but, nonetheless, the team became a fan favorite, fielding drivers like Max Papis, Casey Mears, and Ty Dillon.

Though at the conclusion of the 2020 season, their time with GEICO, and long run as a staple of NASCAR’s mid-pack came to an end.

What Did Hamlin Claim?

Though Germain has not operated in NASCAR in five seasons, during the first day of litigation for 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports’ antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR, the team came up during the testimony of team owner Denny Hamlin.

During this testimony, in which Hamlin became emotional discussing his family’s impact on his racing career, the 44-year-old team owner alleged that NASCAR played a hand in the team’s closure.

Per a report from Matt Weaver of Motorsports, Hamlin said the team’s closure was in direct relation to their loss of sponsor GEICO, with Hamlin saying, “They lost their sponsorship (GEICO) to NASCAR and went out of business.”

Though there is no direct evidence confirming this is the reason behind Germain’s closure, the departure of GEICO and their closure coincided with a major change in the sport.

GEICO did not leave NASCAR after leaving Germain; instead, it turned its sponsorship dollars towards the sport itself, rather than Germain, through its premier partners program.

NASCAR announced the Premier Partners program on December 5, 2019. It replaced the title sponsorship format of its highest division, used since 1971 (i.e., Winston, Nextel, Sprint, Monster Energy), with a group of presenting sponsors called Premier Partners.

The Premier Partner program debuted at the start of the 2020 season, meaning there was one year of overlap between GEICO sponsoring Germain and its time as a Premier Partner.

This initial group of Premier Partners included Busch Beer, Coca-Cola, GEICO, and Xfinity.

Since 2020, only one sponsor has left the program and NASCAR as a whole, GEICO, which left at the conclusion of the 2024 season and was replaced in November 2025 with Freeway Insurance.

How Does This Relate to 23XI Racing?

Though this could seem like an odd point of discussion for this trial, it ties back into two major aspects of 23XI and FRM’s case.

First, and most evident, is the fact that without Germain’s closure, 23XI Racing would not have a NASCAR charter for the 2021 season, as the charter utilized by 23XI for its No. 23, until this past summer, was the same one used by Germain’s No. 13 since the Charter System’s 2016 introduction.

Second, this claim was part of broader financial assertions relating to sponsorship made in court yesterday, with 23XI’s attorney, Jeffery Kessler, expressing during opening arguments that the only reason the team is making profits off Racing is through co-owner and NBA Legend Michael Jordan’s ability to get sponsors.

Opening statements much of same arguments heard before. 23XI/FRM attorney Kessler stressed:
-Emails/texts show anticompetitive strategy of NASCAR w/Jim France lieutenants O'D, Phelps, Prime knowing charter offers were unfair
-Only reason 23XI profitable is b/c MJ can get sponsors https://t.co/32yjeKhoQb

— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) December 1, 2025

While this is likely far from the last allegation of this manner that will be made during the trial, Hamlin’s remarks about NASCAR fishing for team sponsors paint a picture of a sport where both the governing body and its independently owned competitors are battling for the same advertising dollars.

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