CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Three-time Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin angrily lashed out at NASCAR under cross-examination on Day 2 of his team’s antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR as an attorney tried to pin Hamlin’s own words against him.
During three and a half hours of testimony Tuesday morning in a Charlotte federal courtroom, Hamlin openly showed his intense dislike for NASCAR as he went to verbal combat with the league’s attorney, Lawrence Buterman. Hamlin, along with NBA legend Michael Jordan, co-owns 23XI Racing, one of two teams bringing the suit against NASCAR, alleging monopolistic practices in controlling the sport’s financial structure.
Hamlin first relayed how, in 2023, he had expressed concerns about the negotiations for the 2025 charter agreement — the franchise-like system for guaranteeing revenues to teams that is at the heart of the dispute — to then-NASCAR president Steve Phelps, who advised Hamlin to speak with NASCAR chairman and CEO Jim France.
Hamlin said he spotted France eating alone at lunch during the NASCAR Awards week in Nashville, so Hamlin joined France — and came away “very, very discouraged” by their conversation.
“He told me directly the problem in NASCAR is teams spend too much money,” Hamlin recounted, adding France said teams should only be spending $10 million per season to run their cars rather than the current $20 million average.
Hamlin responded by saying it was not realistic to cut his costs in half.
“We’ve cut this grass so short, we’re down to the dirt,” Hamlin said of cost-cutting by the teams.
Hamlin said he told France he was “not trying to be a statistic” and add to the many owners who have gone out of business, and Hamlin asked France how he could recoup his investment in the sport.
“He had no answer,” Hamlin said.
Hamlin, left, leaving the courthouse on Monday. (Grant Baldwin / Getty Images)
Hamlin rejected the notion that NASCAR was doing teams a favor by offering a renewable seven-year term on the 2025 charter agreements because it locked teams into a dollar amount with no negotiations rather than a percentage of the next media rights deal.
The 2025 charter agreement was so bad, Hamlin felt, “we will not be in business if we sign this (within) 10 years.”
“This is essentially my (team’s) death certificate for the future,” he said.
Asked if bringing a lawsuit in response was the right decision in light of the charter negotiations, Hamlin said, “I think it was the only decision.”
“It’s time for change,” he said. “All I knew is we were right and what they did was wrong.”
Hamlin said 23XI’s profit margin was 2.26 percent, but said, “I’m one sponsor away” from having “all this profit gone.” His most optimistic goal, as stated in documents, was to reach a 10 percent profit margin.
However, under cross-examination, Buterman asked if Hamlin thought it was fair to be asking the jury for $205 million in damages — a 900 percent return on Hamlin’s investment, Buterman noted — to which Hamlin struggled to answer and said he would leave the financial questions to the expert witnesses.
“We want to be made whole for what you guys did to us,” Hamlin told Buterman.
In an attempt to use Hamlin’s own words against him, Buterman showed Hamlin a pitch deck the driver had presented to Jordan before forming 23XI that sang the praises of the NASCAR financial model and the Next Gen car.
But Hamlin countered by saying he “believed NASCAR when they told me it would cut operating costs by 40 percent,” which ultimately was not the case.
Buterman then noted Hamlin went on former driver Kenny Wallace’s podcast and said the Next Gen car, which requires teams to source parts from a single supplier in an effort to bring parity, was a positive for the sport — something the teams have now used as a key point in trying to prove NASCAR illegally abused its monopoly power.
An animated Hamlin responded by saying he was doing NASCAR a favor by telling fans such things on a podcast and “painting a rosy picture” about what NASCAR wanted drivers to say publicly.
“All my public (comments) are out of context,” Hamlin said about Buterman’s exhibits, adding that if he was negative publicly, “you guys have an issue with that” and there would be repercussions for him at the racetrack.
“You’re able to essentially dictate how I do,” Hamlin said.
Buterman then asked if that means people cannot trust what Hamlin says publicly.
“That’s nonsense,” Hamlin said. “What I do publicly is put out (positive messages). That’s my job. You give me talking points, I say it to make fans feel happy.”
Buterman then showed Hamlin communications with Jordan about “locking up” driver Corey Heim and wondered why it was OK for Hamlin to try and “lock up” a driver under contract while complaining NASCAR had “locked up” racetracks for stock car events.
Buterman also noted 23XI drivers get paid a smaller percentage than NASCAR pays teams and asked why it was acceptable for 23XI driver Riley Herbst to race under an exclusivity clause while Hamlin complained about NASCAR’s own exclusivity clauses in the lawsuit.
“We are not a monopoly,” a frustrated Hamlin said. “The driver has options. That’s the difference. It’s not anti-competitive if the driver has options.”
Hamlin said he makes $14 million per season from Joe Gibbs Racing, the team he drives for in the NASCAR Cup Series, and has personally invested $10 million into 23XI — but owes Jordan tens of millions of dollars in loans. That includes 40 percent of the costs for 23XI and 50 percent of the $35 million building 23XI constructed, called “Airspeed.”
Buterman noted messages from Jordan’s chief financial officer, Gene Mason, and 23XI co-owner Curtis Polk calling Hamlin a “terrible businessman” who “spends money recklessly.”
However, Hamlin brushed off the disagreements, saying it was their job to try to keep him in check.
“Me and Michael, we want to win,” Hamlin said as Jordan smiled and nodded.
Jordan, sitting in the front row of the courtroom, often appeared amused and outright delighted by Hamlin’s combativeness with Buterman. He grinned, smirked, shook his head and laughed on several occasions.
On Monday, Hamlin was the first witness called to testify in the trial scheduled to span at least 10 days. He began by answering straightforward questions about his career and his path to becoming one of NASCAR’s biggest stars, tearing up as he spoke about his father, who is battling serious health issues.
Along with Hamlin, many other high-profile individuals are expected to testify. Also on the list are his fellow 23XI co-owners Jordan and Polk, both of whom have strongly advocated for NASCAR embracing a better business model for its teams. Polk played an instrumental role in the charter negotiations between NASCAR and the then-15 charter-holding teams between the spring of 2022 and September 2024, when 13 teams eventually signed the latest agreement.
The only teams not to sign were 23XI and Front Row Motorsports, who then filed a joint antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR and France alleging that the league operated as an illegal monopoly by enacting various measures to suppress the teams’ earning potential. This was the focus of a 75-minute opening statement Monday from Jeffrey Kessler, the attorney for 23XI and Front Row. NASCAR attorney John E. Stephenson rebutted, saying the issue is not centered around the teams’ antitrust claims but a contract negotiation that did not materialize as the teams wished.
During his testimony, which spanned two days, Hamlin explained multiple times how he believes NASCAR’s business model is set up to enrich the France family — who founded the league in 1948 — at the expense of team owners. And a majority of these owners, Hamlin said, operate their respective teams at great financial loss.
“Only one side is going out of business,” Hamlin said on Monday, referencing multiple teams that have shut down since the charter system was first instituted in 2016.
NASCAR executive questioned in afternoon session
In the afternoon, the teams put NASCAR executive vice president Scott Prime, who heads NASCAR’s strategy, on the witness stand.
Kessler, the teams’ attorney, began to build his case for NASCAR’s anticompetitive practices by using Prime’s strategy memos and presentation decks to show how NASCAR was concerned over a possible LIV Golf-type situation in stock car racing.
One presentation showed NASCAR’s options to counter a potential breakaway series included a strengthened relationship with track ownership company Speedway Motorsports — which ended up coming to fruition (though Prime denied any knowledge of NASCAR’s sanction agreements with the SM racetracks).
Kessler showed a NASCAR sanction agreement with one SM track — Las Vegas Motor Speedway — which carried a two-year exclusivity clause beyond the term of the agreement. In other words, the track would not be allowed to host any potential rival stock car series for two years after the agreement expired — through 2026, which overlapped with the window in which a new series was most likely to be formed.
Kessler then showed a document from Prime that planned for a meeting between senior executives and France which laid out two pathways — the first of which was “NASCAR has all the leverage and the teams will almost have to sign the terms we put in front of them.”
Prime said he disagreed with that path and pushed for a compromise with the teams, which other executives agreed with. The jury was shown text messages from Phelps, then the NASCAR president, citing a chart that had “zero wins for teams,” and then-NASCAR COO Steve O’Donnell saying the lack of support for the teams would result in a “1998, f— the teams dictatorship, redneck, Southern, tiny sport.”
Kessler argued France chose the path of forcing the agreement through despite the executives’ wishes — something Prime denied on the stand and said progress had been made from the day of the frustrated text messages.
“From my point of view, where we landed was strong for the teams,” Prime said.
But when Kessler ran through the list of all the major things the teams had asked for from that stage in the negotiations, Prime acknowledged NASCAR didn’t ultimately concede on any of them.
Prime’s testimony will continue Wednesday.
