{"id":344358,"date":"2025-12-14T09:04:24","date_gmt":"2025-12-14T09:04:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/344358\/"},"modified":"2025-12-14T09:04:24","modified_gmt":"2025-12-14T09:04:24","slug":"how-nascars-trial-of-the-century-came-to-an-end-in-just-2-hours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/344358\/","title":{"rendered":"How NASCAR\u2019s trial of the century came to an end in just 2 hours"},"content":{"rendered":"

CHARLOTTE, N.C. \u2014 The courtroom that has hosted the NASCAR antitrust trial<\/a> over the past two weeks immediately had an odd vibe on Thursday morning, as it was apparent that something unusual was happening.<\/p>\n

At 8:10 a.m. (ET), 20 minutes before the trial reconvened for the day, both sides were suddenly huddling in a conference with their attorneys. NASCAR\u2019s attorney walked over and said something to Jim France and Lesa Kennedy, NASCAR\u2019s two majority owners. Jeffrey Kessler, the attorney for the two teams suing NASCAR, conferred with 23XI Racing owners Michael Jordan, Denny Hamlin and Curtis Polk, who was making his first appearance in the courtroom since opening statements, and Front Row Motorsports owner Bob Jenkins.<\/p>\n

Judge Kenneth D. Bell appeared six minutes later and called the attorneys into a sidebar, then called in the jury at 8:31 a.m.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve met with the attorneys, and we\u2019re going to sacrifice an hour of your time,\u201d Bell told the jury of six with three alternates. \u201cWe need an hour to see if we can save you several hours. I really do believe this will save you a lot of time in the long run.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bell instructed the court to go into recess for an hour, and the parties scattered to confer on what certainly appeared to be settlement talks.<\/p>\n

After an hour, the court clerk appeared and announced, \u201cWhoever is coming, meet me in the front hallway.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jordan, Hamlin, Jenkins and their attorneys followed her out of the courtroom.<\/p>\n

However, at 9:59 a.m., Bell was suddenly back on the bench and appeared ready to resume the testimony. He told the defense witness, Dr. Mark Zmijewski, to approach the stand and asked the plaintiffs\u2019 team if they had everyone needed to resume questioning.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Kessler will be here in one minute,\u201d attorney Josh Hafenbrack said.<\/p>\n

\u201cVery important person,\u201d Bell cracked.<\/p>\n

Kessler then emerged with apologies to the judge, saying he was \u201cwaiting for a little more information just to close the loop\u201d and asked for a few more minutes as the defense was going through courtroom security.<\/p>\n

Bell agreed.<\/p>\n

Then, at 10:04 a.m., Kessler was back in the courtroom \u2014 along with the rest of the attorneys from both sides.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour honor, I am pleased to say the parties have positively settled this matter<\/a> in a way that will benefit the industry going forward,\u201d Kessler said.<\/p>\n

But Bell, a no-nonsense judge, wasn\u2019t satisfied.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow much longer do you need? You said an hour and now \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re literally typing a few things in,\u201d Kessler said. \u201cThere are no more open items.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll stay sitting here to motivate you,\u201d Bell replied.<\/p>\n

It was obvious what was coming, and the celebration had begun. Hamlin, Jordan and Jenkins shook hands with each other and some of their attorneys.<\/p>\n

Jordan sat with a venti holiday Starbucks cup \u2014 with a barista-scribbled \u201cThank you!\u201d on the side \u2014 and looked toward the front of the courtroom, then peered to the side at two reporters, who grinned back, and smirked.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are you smiling at?\u201d he teased.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood day,\u201d he acknowledged.<\/p>\n

Bell was handed the final document and read it for a few minutes before bringing the jury in for the final time.<\/p>\n

NASCAR attorney Larry Buterman, who seemed to enjoy his sparring with Jordan throughout the trial, walked over and patted Jordan on the back as they shook hands.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo the parties agree to settle all issues before the jury?\u201d Bell asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, your honor,\u201d both Kessler and Buterman responded.<\/p>\n

\u201cBring the jury in,\u201d Bell said.<\/p>\n

The nine jury members, who had been told on Wednesday that the trial would extend to next week, were seemingly in the dark about what was happening.<\/p>\n

\u201cMembers of the jury, this case has been settled,\u201d Bell said.<\/p>\n

There was little reaction on many of their faces, if any.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat means the trial is over,\u201d Bell added.<\/p>\n

The courtroom burst into laughter, and one juror on the end did a happy dance.<\/p>\n

Bell said the court clerk had told him the jury was her \u201cfavorite jury of all time\u201d because they were always prompt and engaged, and Bell said he was \u201cextremely impressed\u201d with them. He could tell they understood this complicated case and were aware of everything that was happening, and the judge thanked them for helping to settle it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t achieve what you did the last nine days,\u201d while participating in settlement talks this fall, Bell said. \u201cYou enabled them to see the wisdom of settlement.\u201d<\/p>\n

His final instruction: At last, the jury was allowed to speak to whoever they wanted about the case and read whatever had been written about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd there\u2019s been a lot written about it,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

With that, Bell told the parties he was \u201cvery happy\u201d with the settlement outcome.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish you had done this a couple months ago, but it was the right thing to do,\u201d Bell said. \u201cI congratulate all of you. This is going to be great for NASCAR \u2014 the entity NASCAR, the industry NASCAR, the teams, the drivers and, as you have often said yourselves, ultimately the fans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then, like the final and cathartic scene from a tense movie, all the characters involved crossed the aisle to greet each other.<\/p>\n

There was Jordan shaking hands with NASCAR president Steve O\u2019Donnell and longtime executive Mike Helton. Hamlin was hugging \u2014 yes, hugging \u2014 Jim France.<\/p>\n

All of the adversaries who had expressed so much bad blood and torn NASCAR from the inside out in this trial were suddenly locking arms, with no cameras present, in what appeared to be a genuine gesture of moving forward.<\/p>\n

Then they walked out into the North Carolina sunshine, stood on the courthouse steps and faced the media.<\/p>\n

It was over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHARLOTTE, N.C. \u2014 The courtroom that has hosted the NASCAR antitrust trial over the past two weeks immediately…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344359,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,12716,634,82,575],"class_list":["post-344358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-motorsports","tag-nascar","tag-sports","tag-sports-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344358","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=344358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}