NASCAR Ford team Front Row Motorsports (FRM) and Toyota outfit 23XI have been locked in a heated fight against the sport’s sanctioning body over its charter system. FRM and 23XI have both been running as “open” teams – that is, teams without active charters – which they argue has hurt their revenue streams and put them in danger of losing their drivers and sponsors. Now, after a summer of “fact discovery,” some rather explicit messages from both sides of the aisle have surfaced, shedding new light on the sticky situation between the teams and NASCAR itself.
According to a recent report from Motorsport, both parties requested and were granted access to documents and communications pertaining to the ongoing case. Some of the unearthed communications revealed that 23XI co-owner Michael Jordan (yes, that Michael Jordan) expressed explicit displeasure with other teams’ decisions to sign the charter agreement.
Jordan seemed frustrated that Joe Gibbs Racing, a Toyota team, signed the charter agreement after an “11th hour” deal. Jordan called JGR executives “f***ers” before going on to say that fellow Cup Series teams would regret not siding with 23XI and FRM, calling said teams “p***ies” for standing by and watching.
On the opposite side of the aisle, communications between NASCAR President Steve Phelps and Steve O’Donnell, the sport’s commissioner, surfaced. Phelps admitted that the charter agreement presented “zero wins for the teams,” while O’Donnell explicitly said they wanted to reach an agreement reminiscent of past team structures, saying, “Close to a comfortable 1996, f*** the teams, dictatorship, motorsport, redneck, southern, tiny sport.”
FRM and 23XI could very well lose the case, and an unnamed buyer is in the market for their charters. Should FRM lose its charters, that could mean fewer NASCAR Ford entries on track, meaning The Blue Oval’s presence in the Cup Series would shrink even further.