The never-ending lawsuit between 23XI Racing, Front Row Motorsports, and NASCAR has taken yet another turn, with Rick Hendrick and Roger Penske pushing back against their Cup Series rivals\u2019 request for the team owners to be deposed.<\/p>\n
Hendrick and Penske are new arrivals to the saga<\/a>, which began in October 2024 with 23XI and FRM filing an antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR<\/a> regarding its charter agreement and what they believe to be \u201cmonopolistic\u201d practices on behalf of the organization.<\/p>\n Following a failure for the sides to reach a settlement agreement<\/a> at a recent hearing in Charlotte, North Carolina, after which NASCAR<\/a>\u2019s counterclaim was dismissed by Judge Kenneth Bell<\/a> in an early win for the two teams, it emerged that the organization intended for both Hendrick and Penske to take to the stand once the trial begins on December 1.<\/p>\n Such a formal deposition would involve the individuals in question being interviewed under oath and is key to the discovery phase. This would see both 23XI\/FRM and NASCAR gain access to documents and prior conversations – something both Hendrick and Penske are wary of as it pertains to their rivals.<\/p>\n 23XI and FRM subsequently submitted their own request to depose Hendrick and Penske prior to the trial, according to Bob Pockrass<\/a>. He added, \u201cFRM\/23XI allege Hendrick and Penske were designated as possible witnesses at trial and weren’t designated as possible witnesses prior to the end of discovery as required.\u201d<\/p>\n Sign up to our NASCAR newsletter here.<\/a><\/p>\n However, Hendrick and Penske have now fired back, calling for this deposition request to be denied, \u201cor otherwise putting guardrails on their testimony at deposition (and trial) limiting such testimony to the high-level subject matter of their Declarations,\u201d as per the court filing.<\/p>\n In a subsequent preliminary statement, Hendrick and Penske\u2019s attorneys stated, \u201cIn keeping with the adage that \u2018no good deed goes unpunished,\u2019 Movants find themselves, quickly and without much warning, in the unenviable position of being offered to give expansive and unnecessary deposition testimony as a result of wrangling between the parties to a lawsuit that should have been settled long before now.<\/p>\n \u201cAs explained in greater detail below, Messrs. Hendrick and Penske, in view of their decades-long relationship with Jim France, agreed to give limited testimony regarding non-confidential matters at the trial of this case, but in a way that did not force them to \u2018take sides\u2019 in this lawsuit \u2013 something which both men have made clear that they cannot and will not do.<\/p>\n DON’T MISS…<\/p>\n \u201cThat has now morphed into an effort by the Plaintiffs to seek testimony potentially regarding HMS\u2019 and Penske\u2019s highly confidential financial and other business information. Movants bring this motion because efforts to resolve this matter amicably proved fruitless.\u201d<\/p>\n This follows another recent ruling by Judge Bell, which sided with 23XI\/FRM in that, in the court\u2019s opinion, NASCAR does indeed hold a monopoly over the \u201cpremier stock-car racing\u201d market. As a result, this essentially brushes aside NASCAR\u2019s argument that disgruntled teams can simply race elsewhere, as noted by ESPN<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are very pleased with the Court’s decision today, ruling in our favor,\u201d 23XI\/FRM attorney Jeffrey Kessler said. \u201cNot only does it deny NASCAR’s motion for summary judgment, but it also grants our partial summary judgment motion, finding that NASCAR has monopoly power in a properly defined market.<\/p>\n \u201cThis means that the trial can now be focused on whether NASCAR has maintained that power through anticompetitive acts and used that power to harm teams. We’re prepared to present our case to the jury and are focused on obtaining a verdict that benefits all of the teams, partners, drivers, and the fans.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The never-ending lawsuit between 23XI Racing, Front Row Motorsports, and NASCAR has taken yet another turn, with Rick…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269739,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[2074,49,48,2332,634,2333,13948,82267,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-269738","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-23xi-racing","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-motorsport-section","12":"tag-nascar","13":"tag-nascar-lawsuit","14":"tag-rick-hendrick","15":"tag-roger-penske","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}