23XI Racing and Entrance Row Motorsports have filed a preliminary injunction to race as chartered NASCAR Cup Sequence groups in 2025 because the authorized course of continues with the antitrust case filed towards NASCAR.
“The 23XI and Entrance Row Motorsports groups are absolutely dedicated to competing in subsequent 12 months’s Cup Sequence,” a joint assertion mentioned. “At the moment’s procedural submitting is the following step in advancing our case towards NASCAR and their monopolistic practices whereas defending our drivers, race groups, and sponsors by establishing our authorized proper to run in 2025.”
Cup Sequence groups who’ve charters obtain considerably more cash than Open groups. 23XI Racing and Entrance Row Motorsports are additionally within the means of increasing their operations to a few vehicles subsequent season.
The antitrust case, which accuses NASCAR of illegal monopolization, was filed Oct. 2 in North Carolina. 23XI Racing and Entrance Row Motorsports have been the one two organizations that didn’t signal the 2025 Constitution Settlement.
Along with the preliminary injunction, the groups additionally filed a movement for expedited discovery to obtain instant entry to paperwork and recordsdata from NASCAR CEO Jim France, Lesa France Kennedy, Ben Kennedy, Steve O’Donnell, Steve Phelps and Scott Prime. The knowledge the groups are looking for paperwork discussing the necessary launch provision within the 2025 constitution settlement; paperwork discussing NASCAR’s determination to finish negotiating with the Workforce Negotiating Committee and solely negotiate with particular person racing groups for the 2025 constitution settlement; and paperwork discussing NASCAR’s determination to current to the groups a take-it-or-leave-it ultimate proposal for the 2025 constitution settlement.
Michael McDowell of Entrance Row Motorsports. / Picture: Rusty Jarrett / NKP / LAT Pictures)
The movement additionally included looking for paperwork and recordsdata associated to NASCAR’s unique contracts with racetracks, its acquisitions of the ARCA Menards Sequence, and the supply within the constitution settlement that restricts groups from competing in non-NASCAR sanctioned occasions in addition to groups being unable to make use of Subsequent Gen components and items in non-NASCAR sanctioned occasions.
“NASCAR’s dominant management over racing will not be due to its superior talent or enterprise acumen, however quite its historical past of exclusionary acts and restrictive agreements which have stifled competitors via its monopoly energy,” mentioned Jeffrey Kessler of Winston & Strawn, the lead counsel for 23XI Racing and Entrance Row Motorsports. “We imagine our expedited discovery requests of NASCAR and the France household will make clear their anticompetitive practices and help a preliminary injunction ruling that 23XI and Entrance Row Motorsports have a legally protected proper to race subsequent 12 months whereas our antitrust case proceeds in Court docket.”
NASCAR has not commented on the lawsuit.
