{"id":311456,"date":"2025-11-28T02:24:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T02:24:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/311456\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T02:24:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T02:24:14","slug":"richard-childress-contemplating-legal-action-after-seeing-unearthed-texts-between-nascar-executives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/311456\/","title":{"rendered":"Richard Childress Contemplating Legal Action After Seeing Unearthed Texts Between NASCAR Executives"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richard Childress and Richard Childress Racing were taken aback by unearthed internal text messages between NASCAR executives featured in a recent dump of legal documents<\/a> tied to the upcoming lawsuit from 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports against NASCAR.<\/p>\n

In the text messages, NASCAR Commissioner Steve Phelps and Brian Herbst, NASCAR EVP, Chief Media & Revenue Officer, the executives bash Childress, a six-time NASCAR Cup Series championship-winning team owner, who was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2017.<\/p>\n

On Monday afternoon, Richard Childress Racing issued a statement on the messages, where the organization and team owner stated their deep disappointment with the content contained within the text conversations between NASCAR executives.<\/p>\n

\u201cRCR and Richard Childress are deeply disappointed by the insensitive and defamatory statements made about Mr. Childress in recently surfaced text messages between NASCAR executives Steve Phelps and Brian Herbst. These comments reflect the way certain NASCAR executives have historically viewed and treated many team owners like Mr. Childress, who have devoted their lives to strengthening the sport for its fans, its sponsors, and all who compete in it,\u201d the team said in its statement.<\/p>\n

The statement continued by saying that there will be no further statements as the team owner and organization are mulling legal action.<\/p>\n

\u201cRCR and Richard Childress are equally disappointed for the NASCAR fans, with whom Mr. Childress closely identifies, given his humble and hard-working background. Mr. Childress and the organization will issue no further statements regarding these or other defamatory text messages that have recently surfaced, as legal action is being contemplated and discussed with legal counsel.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the text message exchange from August 2023, Phelps tells Herbst, \u201cChildress needs to be taken out back and flogged. He\u2019s a stupid redneck who owes his entire fortune to nascar.\u201d<\/p>\n

Herbst, who hadn\u2019t seen and interview that Phelps was referencing, kept the conversation going about how the Charter negotiations between NASCAR and the teams was going, to which Phelps responded, \u201cThese guys are short sighted and self serving. Childress is an idiot. If they don\u2019t like the state of the sport, sell you charter and get out.\u201d<\/p>\n

After Herbst indicated he was out of the meetings that he was in, Phelps jabbed again, \u201cDid I mention that Childress is an idiot?\u201d<\/p>\n

To which Herbst responded, \u201cJust listened to the hit. He is an idiot,\u201d and Herbst would follow up by saying, \u201cSo many false claims and\/or disingenuous statements.\u201d<\/p>\n

Phelps would finish the section of conversation by again reiterating that if Childress wasn\u2019t happy, he should sell his charters, and he took another personal shot at Childress.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he\u2019s that angry (and apparently he is) sign your charter extension and sell. He\u2019s not smart \u2013 is a dinosaur \u2013 and a malcontent. He\u2019s worth a couple hundred million dollars \u2013 every dollar associated with nascar in some fashion. Total ass-clown.\u201d<\/p>\n

Things are getting ugly, and the trial, which led to the document dump that has potentially spawned more legal action, hasn\u2019t even officially kicked off. 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports will face off against NASCAR in an antitrust lawsuit set to begin on December 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Richard Childress and Richard Childress Racing were taken aback by unearthed internal text messages between NASCAR executives featured…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311457,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[43409,2074,48728,134734,49,48,2073,8127,634,9535,9536,82,10364],"class_list":["post-311456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-43409","tag-23xi-racing","tag-antitrust-lawsuit","tag-brian-herbst","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-front-row-motorsports","tag-lawsuit","tag-nascar","tag-richard-childress","tag-richard-childress-racing","tag-sports","tag-steve-phelps"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311456","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=311456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}