“We have top men working on it right now.”
“Who?”
“Top. Men.”
– Raiders of the Lost Ark
I’ve previously referred to the NASCAR antitrust trial as being the equivalent of Christmas.
In the end, NASCAR Christmas turned out to be a lot like the real thing.
It had weeks and days of intense build up and hype.
What are we going to get under the tree? How big will the gifts be? Would the Christmas party wind up being cancelled at the last minute?
There wound up being plenty of gifts. But sometimes it felt like we were watching a nine-day game of Dirty Santa gift exchange, with an endless stream of embarrassing emails, text messages, family bickering and financial information we would never have learned about if not for the power of the subpoena.
Then, like the real Christmas on Dec, 25, it was just … over.
Thursday (Dec. 11) morning brought the end of arguably the most important nine days in NASCAR history and the surreal image of Michael Jordan and Jim France side-by-side on the steps of a Federal courthouse, no longer bitter enemies.
Imagine reading the previous paragraph six years ago.
After years of fierce charter negotiations, a year of two sides playing chicken with the possibility of going to court and days of largely embarrassing testimony for the sanctioning body, NASCAR folded.
Instead of the sport getting nuked with a guilty verdict and a judge imposed outcome, NASCAR did what it should have done a month — or more — ago and settled with 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports.
Permanent, wait, my bad, “evergreen” charters are now here for good.
All it took was one day of NASCAR presenting its own case and possibly an angry letter written by Bass Pro Shops founder Johnny Morris while hunting in the woods.
Bass Pro Shops founder Johnny Morris: “… the commissioner’s recently revealed contempt for Richard Childress makes it abundantly clear that he and his lieutenants are not capable of being fair and objective when it comes to impartially enforcing the rules and regulations…” pic.twitter.com/ThoQ4BfwTx
— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) December 11, 2025
And what did we learn along the way?
We learned how much money was sent by NASCAR to the France family trust over period of time: $400 million.
We learned the salary of the highest ranking person in the sport not named France, Commissioner Steve Phelps.
Phelps testified that he made $2.5 million a year and could earn up to $2.5 million in bonuses for a total of $5 million
$5 million to do what?
According to Phelps, the exact same thing he had been doing when he was NASCAR’s president.
We also learned that Phelps, Steve O’Donnell and France didn’t know or didn’t recall a lot of important things when questioned during the trial.
4 Takeaways From the 23XI/Front Row Motorsports-NASCAR Settlement
We also learned NASCAR might have the most paranoid executive suite in sports.
Somehow, someway, the powers that be saw Tony Stewart’s Superstar Racing Experience, the mid-week racing series that was essentially an exhibition league that didn’t compete on any active NASCAR track, as an existential threat that had to be destroyed.
All because a few Cup drivers (including Chase Elliott) went and had fun on a national television network that wasn’t paying NASCAR.
It wasn’t just O’Donnell and Phelps.
We learned that Sam Flood, a president at NBC Sports, doesn’t trust the intelligence of NASCAR fans.
Phelps testified that Flood called him and said that the inclusion of Elliott in a SRX race in a car sponsored by NAPA was causing confusion in the marketplace.
Phelps is now under cross examination by NASCAR as we head to lunch recess. Phelps has testified that he was concerned about SRX from day one, but that things reached a head when NBC’s Sam Flood complained about Chase Elliott winning at the fairgrounds using the “stylized” No. 9…
— Toby Christie (@Toby_Christie) December 9, 2025
To believe that anyone, especially motorsports fans, would somehow conflate NASCAR’s most popular driver competing in a SRX race during the week with what he does on Sunday is comical and insulting.
Different tracks. Different car. Even a different car number (the 94 is not the 9, last time I checked).
That none of these men in power allowed themselves the thought that a “just for kicks” racing series on a different network — with a potential new audience — would be a good way to promote NASCAR and its weekend broadcasts is jarring.
It’s shows a lack of imagination in time when the sport needs it.
It also reminds us that even that if they’re in motorsports, Top Men with titles like “president,” “chairman” and “commissioner” have one goal: making money.
There’s a reason that the judge in the antitrust trial at one point instructed NASCAR’s attorneys that “growing the sport” couldn’t be used in testimony as a reasoning for something anymore. To paraphrase, he said: We get it. That means more money for NASCAR.
I’m going to miss the Nine Days of NASCAR Christmas that we got.
Instead of executives being forced to tell the controversial truth (or some version of it) under oath, it’s back to canned responses at press conferences that sound informative but aren’t.
We’ll be lucky if we ever get to hear from the introverted Jim France on the record in front of a hot mic ever again.
But I’ll cherish the memories that we made over the last two weeks.
They were bitter, sometimes amusing, but necessary.
Daniel McFadin is a 10-year veteran of the NASCAR media corp. He wrote for NBC Sports from 2015 to October 2020. He currently works full time for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and is lead reporter and an editor for Frontstretch. He is also host of the NASCAR podcast “Dropping the Hammer with Daniel McFadin” presented by Democrat-Gazette.
You can email him at danielmcfadin@gmail.com.