23XI co-owner Denny Hamlin was \u201cvery reluctantly\u201d barred from the courtroom as the team\u2019s year-long legal battle with NASCAR heads to trial.<\/p>\n
Last October, 23XI \u2014 which was founded in 2020 by Hamlin<\/a>, NBA legend Michael Jordan<\/a> and his business partner Curtis Polk \u2014 filed a joint antitrust lawsuit with Front Row Motorsports owner Bob Jenkins against NASCAR CEO Jim France in North Carolina\u2019s federal court. In the suit, they accused the sanctioning body of \u201cunlawful monopolization of premier stock car racing in order to enrich themselves at the expense of the premier stock car racing teams\u201d while using \u201canti-competitive practices to prevent fair competition in the sport.\u201d<\/p>\n On Monday, Hamlin, Jordan and Polk arrived at a Charlotte courthouse<\/a> alongside Bob Jenkins and lead attorney Jeffrey L. Kessler \u2014 though only one of the 23XI owners was allowed to remain inside during the legal proceedings.<\/p>\n As per NASCAR\u2019s request, judge Kenneth Bell barred Hamlin and Polk from the courtroom until their testimonies, which don\u2019t have a finite date set as of writing. The organization drew upon Federal Rule of Evidence 615, which states: \u201cAt a party\u2019s request, the court must order witnesses excluded from the courtroom so that they cannot hear other witnesses\u2019 testimony. Or the court may do so on its own.\u201d<\/p>\n The rule of sequestration is designed to prevent witnesses from tailoring their statements to what they\u2019ve heard from others called to the stand. NASCAR called on Judge Bell to enforce the restriction, arguing that 23XI shouldn\u2019t have more than one co-owner on hand unless they were testifying.<\/p>\n Sign up to our NASCAR newsletter here.<\/a><\/p>\n 23XI issued an unsuccessful formal motion seeking permission to let Hamlin and Polk \u2014 who served as a counter-defendant to NASCAR\u2019s prior countersuit \u2014 remain in the room. The pair were allowed to be present for the opening statements but subsequently asked to leave, while Jordan was named the protected representative and allowed to stay.<\/p>\n According to The Athletic\u2019s Jeff Gluck, Judge Bell told reporters that he \u201cvery reluctantly\u201d barred Hamlin and Polk before adding: \u201cI really do wish you could be here.\u201d As for why he sided with NASCAR, Bell expressed concern over triggering a legal technicality. \u201c[I] only want to try this case once,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n In recent days, Hamlin has done little to hide his frustration regarding the ongoing legal feud with NASCAR. Taking to social media, the 45-year-old ruthlessly slammed ESPN\u2019s Ryan McGee<\/a> for writing an incredibly biased article favoring the defendant<\/a>.<\/p>\n DON’T MISS:<\/p>\n \u201cPlease give credit to @mforde for helping you write this propaganda piece that they want pushed to switch the narrative,\u201d Hamlin wrote, referencing NASCAR senior vice president of communications Mike Forde. \u201cContinuous lies about our stance, NASCARs motives for its actions, and continued message from the sanctioning body that everything is fine. Our fans know better.\u201d<\/p>\n In a separate post, Hamlin added: \u201cOur fans have been brainwashed with their talking points for decades. Narratives pushed by media who are intimidated by them. Lies are over starting Monday morning. It\u2019s time for the truth. It\u2019s time for change.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"23XI co-owner Denny Hamlin was \u201cvery reluctantly\u201d barred from the courtroom as the team\u2019s year-long legal battle with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":319016,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[2074,49,48,141803,3932,2332,634,15085,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-319015","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-courtroom-exclusion","12":"tag-denny-hamlin","13":"tag-motorsport-section","14":"tag-nascar","15":"tag-nascar-antitrust-lawsuit","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319015","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=319015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}