After a court decision forced Rick Hendrick and Roger Penske to subject themselves to an oral deposition in advance of the 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports v NASCAR antitrust trial, Hendrick\u2019s schedule is not agreeing to a date.<\/p>\n
As a result, 23XI and Front Row are asking the court to not allow the Sanctioning Body to put him on the witness stand.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor Mr. Hendrick, the deposition was initially scheduled for November 18, 2025, at Hendrick Automotive Group\u2019s offices in Charlotte, for the convenience of the deponent. However, for reasons disclosed to the Court, Plaintiffs have been informed that Mr. Hendrick cannot be deposed on November 18, and the witness is otherwise not available on any other day before the December 1, 2025 trial. Instead, Mr. Hendrick\u2019s counsel offered an opportunity for Plaintiffs to take Mr. Hendrick\u2019s deposition during the first week of trial. \u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile Mr. Hendrick\u2019s counsel has offered the possibility of scheduling a deposition for the first week of trial, such an option would prove prejudicial as Plaintiffs\u2019 counsel will already have their trial strategy in place\u2014including planned timing for witnesses\u2014and otherwise be fully engaged with the trial itself. The prejudice that deposing Mr. Hendrick during trial, which would necessarily include taking counsel away from focusing on the trial itself, is not warranted.<\/p>\n
\u201cNASCAR has caused the tight scheduling constraints with its late disclosure of Mr. Hendrick as a trial witness so this prejudice to Plaintiffs is unjustified and unfair.\u201d<\/p>\n
NASCAR had asked Hendrick and Penske to serve as witnesses, specifically by chairman Jim France himself, who is also a defendant to the 23XI and Front Row suit. But the two teams accused NASCAR of \u2018sandbagging\u2019 their participation by doing so a month before the trial and after the close of fact discovery.<\/p>\n
Judge Kenneth D. Bell ordered both to give interviews to 23XI and Front Row, without restrictions of what could be asked, calling it \u2018absurd\u2019 in court this week that Penske and Hendrick would even try to argue that the questions be limited in scope as to not address their race teams\u2019 financials.<\/p>\n
NASCAR filed a response to 23XI and Front Row\u2019s motion, saying that Hendrick can give him deposition during the first week of the trial.<\/p>\n
\u201cMr. Hendrick is scheduled to testify in NASCAR\u2019s case, which likely will not begin until the week of December 8. And NASCAR can further accommodate Plaintiffs by calling him later in NASCAR\u2019s case. Thus, even after trial begins on December 1, Plaintiffs will have numerous days to secure Mr. Hendrick\u2019s deposition, including two non-trial days on December 6 and 7.<\/p>\n
Plaintiffs also have plenty of attorneys who could take this short deposition, even during trial. Plaintiffs have affirmatively reassured Mr. Hendrick\u2019s counsel and NASCAR that their deposition questioning will not last more than 2.5 hours. Plaintiffs have had at least 15 attorneys attend depositions in this case, with at least 7 Plaintiffs\u2019 attorneys taking deposition testimony. At least five law firm partners have noticed appearances on behalf of Plaintiffs. It is not unusual for a court to order that a party make \u201cwitnesses available for deposition in advance of their testimony in court, even if such depositions must be taken during trial.\u201d See Kunzman v. Enron Corp.\u201d<\/p>\n
NASCAR also quibbles with the assertion that Hendrick is being inflexible.<\/p>\n
\u201cMr. Hendrick\u2019s counsel diligently alerted the Court to the possibility of the deposition needing to occur on December 1 or later, but noted that the situation is in flux, and other members of the law firm representing Mr. Hendrick are available to assist. Additionally, Mr. Hendrick\u2019s counsel has provided numerous options to accommodate the deposition, including the possibility of a virtual deposition. Plaintiffs, however, have refused such accommodation and insisted on the take-it-or-leave-it Tuesday, November 18 deposition.\u201d<\/p>\n
NASCAR also said 23XI and Front Row served a sandbagged\u2019 subpoena of their own this week.<\/p>\n
\u201cFinally, Plaintiffs\u2019 assertion that they have suffered from \u2018prejudice\u2019 and \u2018surprise\u2019 under Southern States is hypocritical given that they served a trial subpoena yesterday on an accountant from the firm GreerWalker LLP, who does not appear on any witness list or any of Plaintiffs\u2019 initial disclosures.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ultimately, NASCAR wants Hendrick to testify on their behalf and are pushing back on the two teams\u2019 ask to not allow it since they cannot seem to get a oral testimony in advance of the trial.<\/p>\n
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