While 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports have no charters, NASCAR has made a rule change regarding future races. It is unclear why NASCAR would make this rule change now, but it might be a bit of goodwill from the series amid the ongoing lawsuit.

Jeff Gluck of The Athletic reported on the rule change. An update shows that NASCAR is now able to limit entries to a particular race to only 40 cars. The rule, if enacted, would also lock in Open Teams based on Team Owner Points standings.

“NASCAR, at its sole discretion, may elect to limit the number of entries for a race to 40. In such instances, Open Teams will be determined based on the Team Owner Points standings.”

In other words, NASCAR can now limit the field to prevent 23XI and FRM from missing races. There is also an update that says, “Up to six Open Teams will be eligible for starting grid positions based on the highest ranked Team Owner Points standings.”

There is also an update to he Open Exemption Provisional. NASCAR has made a rule change there but by elimnating wording rather than adding anything in. It essentially clears up the language used in one section to make the wording fit the new additions.

This is a move that will possibly help NASCAR in their argument against 23XI and FRM, at least, when it comes to the latest request of the preliminary injunction. They can now show that there is no threat of the teams losing out on a race due to not qualifying. So, it reduces the possible harm that is being done to the teams.

It is another reminder that officials can more or less change the rules at will. Most of the rules include a provision that states NASCAR has the discretion to do as they please.

NASCAR rule change could keep 23XI, FRM unchartered

Due to a ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals, 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports lost charter status last week ahead of Dover. A preliminary injunction from last December had granted the teams charter status and made NASCAR approve the sale of charters from Stewart-Haas Racing to each team.

So, now that those injunctions are voided, there are questions about the charters. Do 23XI and FRM even own the two charters they each had in the 2024 season? The old injunction granted them charter status, not actual charters. At least, that’s the argument NASCAR is making. As for the Stewart-Haas charters, those are likely more complicated to deal with.

We will likely see a ruling this week on the newly requested injunction. Could NASCAR’s rule change sway the court to not grant the injunction? This case continues to be headed for trial later this year.

Five NASCAR Cup Series regular season races remain, four drivers are currently Playoff eligible based on points and three more are within striking distance. And there’s a new championship leader.

That’s the situation as the series moves to the iconic Indianapolis Motor Speedway this weekend for the annual Brickyard 400 summer classic (Sunday, 2 p.m. ET on TNT, HBO Max, IMS Radio and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

A thrilling 400-miler at Dover (Del.) Motor Speedway on Sunday only heightened the dramatic expectations of the five remaining races – at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, at the .875-mile Iowa Speedway, the Watkins Glen, N.Y. road course, the traditional Richmond short track and the grand Daytona International Speedway big track.

Currently last year’s regular season champ, 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick is tops in points among those without a win – a full 156-points up on the 16th place cutoff line. Hendrick Motorsports’ Alex Bowman, RFK Racing’s Chris Buescher and Reddick’s teammate Bubba Wallace round out the fortunate four above the Playoff cutoff line heading to Indianapolis.

However, only a slight 16-points separates Wallace in that 16th and final Playoff position from RFK Racing’s Ryan Preece. Two-time series champion, Richard Childress Racing’s Kyle Busch is 39 points off the cutline and Joe Gibbs Racing’s Ty Gibbs is a more distant 52 points off the pace.

The outstanding news for fans and all the drivers is that these final five venues that will ultimately firm up the 16 Playoff drivers are as unpredictable as they are diverse. Outside of road course ace Shane Van Gisbergen possibly working his magic at the famed Watkins Glen course, there are no absolute odds-on favorite to win at any of the upcoming tracks.

Among the four drivers in the Playoff field on points, only Bowman and Buescher have NASCAR Cup Series wins at any of these upcoming five tracks. Bowman won at Richmond in Spring, 2021. And Buescher has a Daytona victory in Fall, 2023, a Richmond trophy in 2022 and is the defending race winner at Watkins Glen.

Buescher finished ninth on Sunday at Dover, his fifth top-10 in the last seven races, which included a runner-up finish at Michigan in June.

“We got a decent finish out here today with this No. 17 Trimble Mustang and I’m proud of everyone for that,” said Buescher, who was encouraged by his pace at Dover. “We stayed with it all the way until the end. We were really great at the end of the day.”

As for the closest contenders to that Playoff line, Preece and Gibbs are still racing for their first career NASCAR Cup Series victory. The two-time former champ Busch, however, has Cup Series wins at four of the next five tracks; claiming, back-to-back Indianapolis Motor Speedway trophies in 2015-16, the 2013 victory at Watkins Glen, six Richmond wins and a big victory at the 2008 summer race at Daytona.

Precedence also bodes well for a group of drivers farther back in the championship standings needing a race win, a championship Hail Mary of-sorts. HYAK Racing’s Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Dillon, for example, have both won the Daytona 500 and a summer race at the big track.

RFK team owner-driver Brad Keselowski has won at Indianapolis, Richmond and Daytona. Spire Motorsports teammates Michael McDowell and Justin Haley both have Daytona victories.

Not to be overshadowed in all the Playoff eligibility drama at the bottom of the eligibility rankings is who will win the hotly contested regular season championship trophy.

Hendrick Motorsports is certainly poised for a big trophy hoist, it’s just a question of who’s hoisting. Chase Elliott’s summer resurgence coupled with his teammate William Byron’s summer slump have created more drama atop the standings.

Elliott’s sixth-place finish on Sunday at Dover – he also led more than 200 laps – coupled with his teammate Byron’s 31st-place finish gave Elliott the championship lead (by 17-points) for the first time this season.

Elliott, driver of the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, has finished sixth or better in five of the last six races including a win at Atlanta, while Byron has three DNFs in the last four races and only a pair of top-20 finishes in the last seven.

Elliott’s only two wins at the remaining regular season tracks, however, came at Watkins Glen, where he earned his first career NASCAR Cup Series in 2018 and answered with another the next year. Byron also won at Watkins Glen in 2023, and scored his career first series win at Daytona in the summer race in 2020. He is the reigning and two-time defending Daytona 500 champion (2024-25).

Their teammate, 2021 series champion Larson – who is ranked third, 38 points off Elliott – has had a similarly disappointing summer stretch. His fourth place at Dover marks only his second top-10 in the last six races. As with Byron, however, he has a strong resume at the remaining five tracks with a pair of wins at Richmond and Watkins Glen and he goes into this weekend as the defending Indianapolis Motor Speedway race winner.

“It’s good to get a top-five finish and get back on the horse there,” Larson said of his work at Dover, “Hopefully we can string together some good runs now.”

Not to be lost in all the championship talk is the In-Season Challenge $1 million-to-win championship this week pitting Ty Gibbs and Ty  Dillon – grandsons of team owners (Joe Gibbs and Richard Childress, respectively). Whoever finishes higher at Indy claims the big check.

It all makes for a compelling run for Playoff contention. No matter where you are in the championship standings there is plenty still to be decided.

Last year, Valvoline Global, the official motor oil partner of Hendrick Motorsports, renewed and expanded its alliance with the 14-time NASCAR Cup Series champions team through 2029. Their relationship, first forged in 1993 during Jeff Gordon’s rise to his inaugural championship in 1995 and rekindled in 2014, has now entered its second decade of collaboration.

The expanded deal is ready to strengthen not only marketing and technical synergy but also drive engineering innovation and the creation of specialized solutions tailored to meet the unforgiving demands of competition in NASCAR.

While on one side, NASCAR gives the company enough exposure through championship and race wins, on the other side, as based in Lexington, Kentucky, Valvoline’s racing division employs 11 full-time engineers focused solely on performance.

HMS powertrain director Scott Maxim calls the exclusivity of this partnership a “secret weapon” for a team that already boasts a record 14 Cup Series titles.

NASCAR’s rules allow teams to choose their own oils and lubricants while standardizing Sunoco Green E15 98-octane fuel, a loophole that HMS and Valvoline have expertly leveraged to stay ahead of the curve.

Although some might call it cheating, given NASCAR’s tight regulations since the introduction of the Next Gen cars and the heightened parity that often makes passing nearly impossible on tracks for the drivers, Valvoline chief technical officer Roger England draws a clear line.

In his view, creatively interpreting the rules is part of winning, while using anything illegal crosses into cheating. He fully supports innovation within the rulebook but stands firmly against outright violations.

As part of its expanding presence, Valvoline continued as the primary sponsor for William Byron’s No. 24 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 in eight Cup Series races in 2024 and six annually from 2025 to 2029.

It will also retain its role as the primary sponsor for three races on Kyle Larson’s No. 5 Chevrolet through 2029, while maintaining full-season associate sponsorship across HMS’s four-car fleet, which includes 2020 champion and No. 9 driver Chase Elliott as well as No. 48 driver Alex Bowman.

With five wins in 21 starts this season, HMS continues to deliver results, leaving partners like Valvoline Global with every reason to trust in their winning formula.

By Dan Gelston

The Associated Press

DOVER, Del. — Denny Hamlin has stood his ground that wins — enough of them to soon earn his place inside NASCAR’s career top-10 list — matter more to his legacy than a championship.

Easy to say, of course, with 58 race victories to zero titles.

The 44-year-old Hamlin, still driving the No. 11 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing as he’s done since his rookie season in 2006, is motivated to reach the top 10 this season over the final 15 races of the Cup season. Kevin Harvick is 10th on the career list with 60 and Kyle Busch, still active with Richard Childress Racing, is ninth with 63, giving Hamlin realistic numbers to shoot for the rest of the season.

Best to take advantage at tracks where he’s had success, such as Dover Motor Speedway, where he won Sunday for the second straight year and third time overall, compared with a track like this weekend’s race on the Indianapolis oval, where Hamlin is 0 for 16.

“I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to go back to back so bad,” Hamlin said of Dover. “(Indy’s) a track that I’ve just come so fricking close to winning. I just want to cross off all the major racetracks on our schedule.”

Hamlin is a driver who thrives in the chaos like few others — if any can — in the series. His win at Dover came days after the race team he owns with Michael Jordan suffered a setback in its court fight with NASCAR. He insisted ahead of the race that the legal issues never caused a distraction for him in the race car, then proved it on the mile concrete track with a series-best fourth win of the season.

Maybe more dark clouds — like the ones that opened up Sunday, causing a rain delay just laps ahead of the scheduled finish — can fuel Hamlin at Indy.

“All I can hope is that something happens this week that derails everything and then I’ll do better,” Hamlin said.

Hamlin then turned to a NASCAR employee and cracked, “Maybe it’ll come from them.”

Can Hamlin realistically get to 60 in 2025? He won eight times in 2010, six times in 2019 and seven in 2020, all totals that would get him to 60 this year.

“When you get him in a situation where he’s got the ball in his hands and it’s time to go win the race, he finds a way to do that most times,” crew chief Chris Gayle said.

It’s a fitting analogy for a race team owned by a former NFL coach.

At his pace, Hamlin remains a contender to cash in this November at Phoenix Raceway and win his first NASCAR championship — even if he lost out on the $1 million prize in the series’ first In-season challenge.

$1 million is on the line

The idea for the challenge was largely championed by Hamlin, a three-time Daytona 500 winner who floated the idea of a midseason tournament on his “Actions Detrimental” podcast. When NASCAR bought into the idea and announced the creation of the tournament last year, Hamlin called the tournament on social media “such a win for our sport and drivers.” He jokingly added, “I will collect my 1M royalty next season.”

Hamlin earned the No. 1 seed — and was promptly eliminated in the first race by Ty Dillon, the No. 32 seed.

Dillon faces Ty Gibbs next week at Indianapolis to decide the first winner of the tournament.

Was the In-season challenge a success?

Hamlin said the five-race, bracket-style tournament overall was a success — but not without a few kinks. Some of the seeding was off, such as Shane van Gisbergen not qualifying for the field, then ripping off consecutive wins on the Chicago street race and Sonoma Raceway during the tournament races.

And sure, everyone loves a Cinderella in March. But two in July isn’t necessarily making the tournament the NASCAR story of the summer.

“I think it has been unfortunate, right, you probably had a lot of the top seeds get knocked out pretty early in it, but overall, I thought the implementation of it has been good,” Hamlin said.

The other side of the argument is this: Would any fan or media outlet really care about a pair of winless drivers such as Gibbs (the sixth seed) or Dillon at this point of the season without $1 million at stake?

“For a team like us, at this point in the season, we’re not exactly where we want to be yet, but we’re trending in a good direction,” Dillon said on TNT. “Our story doesn’t get told in years past. It’s mainly the guys trying to fight for the points position. It’s the guys running up front, trying to win the race. But our story and our growth in the year stops getting told. I’m grateful we’ve been able to show our personality as a team.”

Unlike the All-Star race where the winner pockets $1 million, the driver with the best finish earns the cash prize, a ring, jackets and a trophy.

Originally Published: July 21, 2025 at 5:42 PM EDT

DOVER, Del. (AP) — Denny Hamlin has stood his ground that wins — enough of them to soon earn his place inside NASCAR’s career top-10 list — matter more to his legacy than a championship.

Easy to say, of course, with 58 race victories to zero titles.

The 44-year-old Hamlin, still driving the No. 11 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing as he’s done since his rookie season in 2006, is motivated to reach the top 10 this season over the final 15 races of the Cup season. Kevin Harvick is 10th on the career list with 60 and Kyle Busch, still active with Richard Childress Racing, is ninth with 63, giving Hamlin realistic numbers to shoot for the rest of the season.

Best to take advantage at tracks where he’s had success, such as Dover Motor Speedway, where he won Sunday for the second straight year and third time overall, compared with a track like this weekend’s race on the Indianapolis oval, where Hamlin is 0 for 16.

“I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to go back to back so bad,” Hamlin said of Dover. “(Indy’s) a track that I’ve just come so fricking close to winning. I just want to cross off all the major racetracks on our schedule.”

Hamlin is a driver who thrives in the chaos like few others — if any can — in the series. His win at Dover came days after the race team he owns with Michael Jordan suffered a setback in its court fight with NASCAR. He insisted ahead of the race that the legal issues never caused a distraction for him in the race car, then proved it on the mile concrete track with a series-best fourth win of the season.

Maybe more dark clouds — like the ones that opened up Sunday, causing a rain delay just laps ahead of the scheduled finish — can fuel Hamlin at Indy.

“All I can hope is that something happens this week that derails everything and then I’ll do better,” Hamlin said.

Hamlin then turned to a NASCAR employee and cracked, “Maybe it’ll come from them.”

Can Hamlin realistically get to 60 in 2025? He won eight times in 2010, six times in 2019 and seven in 2020, all totals that would get him to 60 this year.

“When you get him in a situation where he’s got the ball in his hands and it’s time to go win the race, he finds a way to do that most times,” crew chief Chris Gayle said.

It’s a fitting analogy for a race team owned by a former NFL coach.

At his pace, Hamlin remains a contender to cash in this November at Phoenix Raceway and win his first NASCAR championship — even if he lost out on the $1 million prize in the series’ first In-season challenge.

The idea for the challenge was largely championed by Hamlin, a three-time Daytona 500 winner who floated the idea of a midseason tournament on his “Actions Detrimental” podcast. When NASCAR bought into the idea and announced the creation of the tournament last year, Hamlin called the tournament on social media “such a win for our sport and drivers.” He jokingly added, “I will collect my 1M royalty next season.”

Hamlin earned the No. 1 seed — and was promptly eliminated in the first race by Ty Dillon, the No. 32 seed.

Dillon faces Ty Gibbs next week at Indianapolis to decide the first winner of the tournament.

Hamlin said the five-race, bracket-style tournament overall was a success — but not without a few kinks. Some of the seeding was off, such as Shane van Gisbergen not qualifying for the field, then ripping off consecutive wins on the Chicago street race and Sonoma Raceway during the tournament races.

And sure, everyone loves a Cinderella in March. But two in July isn’t necessarily making the tournament the NASCAR story of the summer.

“I think it has been unfortunate, right, you probably had a lot of the top seeds get knocked out pretty early in it, but overall, I thought the implementation of it has been good,” Hamlin said.

The other side of the argument is this: Would any fan or media outlet really care about a pair of winless drivers such as Gibbs (the sixth seed) or Dillon at this point of the season without $1 million at stake?

“For a team like us, at this point in the season, we’re not exactly where we want to be yet, but we’re trending in a good direction,” Dillon said on TNT. “Our story doesn’t get told in years past. It’s mainly the guys trying to fight for the points position. It’s the guys running up front, trying to win the race. But our story and our growth in the year stops getting told. I’m grateful we’ve been able to show our personality as a team.”

Unlike the All-Star race where the winner pockets $1 million, the driver with the best finish earns the cash prize, a ring, jackets and a trophy.

Dillon had luck on his side during his run, with his lone top-10 finish coming in the first race in Atlanta. He advanced in that race after Hamlin crashed out and finished 31st. Dillon twice has finished 20th, including at Dover. He has a best finish of 13th in five career races on the Indy oval.

Gibbs, the grandson of team owner and football and NASCAR Hall of Famer Joe Gibbs, and Dillon have failed to win in a combined 374 Cup races. Dillon has only two career top-five finishes in a career that dates to 2014. The 22-year-old Gibbs has a much better pedigree, winning the 2022 Xfinity Series title, a series in which he was a 12-time winner. He has six top 10s already this season and could make NASCAR’s playoffs on points.

Gibbs has three straight top 10s in the tournament, including a fifth-place finish at Dover. Gibbs finished 23rd on the Indy oval last season.

He’s done enough to impress his grandfather.

“There’s some people there that we got off to a terrible start, it was awful, (but) I had people on that group that came to me encouraging me, ideas for me, after it. I think they care for Ty. It just was a huge deal,” the 84-year-old Gibbs said. “This sport will really measure you. But those guys have fought back.”

___

AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

When the courts declined to issue a temporary restraining order (TRO) that would have prevented NASCAR from taking charters away from 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports, they didn’t slam the door shut on the idea.

The judge noted that if a situation arose where the teams were in danger of missing a race due to field size, they may still issue the TRO as that could fit the definition of irreparable harm. Likely to prevent this from happening, NASCAR has updated their rule book.

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“NASCAR, at its sole discretion, may elect to limit the number of entries for a race to 40. In such instances, open teams will be determined based on team owner points standings,” the rule now says.

The reasoning behind it

Todd Gilliland, Front Row Motorsports Ford

By preventing 23XI and FRM from missing any races, NASCAR ensures the courts don’t have a reason to grant a TRO that would give them their charters back. Without charters, the two teams are only earning about 1/3rd of what they could be earning every race weekend.

The teams previously benefitted from a preliminary injunction issued last December, which allowed them to race as chartered teams while suing NASCAR over the terms of the 2025 Charter Agreement. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has since revoked that injunction.

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The trial date for this lawsuit is set for December 1st, with 23XI co-owner Denny Hamlin recently saying “all will be exposed” there.

Read Also:

Denny Hamlin wins dramatic Dover NASCAR Cup race in double overtime

Ty Dillon will face Ty Gibbs in $1 million challenge final at Indianapolis

Defiant Denny Hamlin says “all will be exposed” at trial after losing NASCAR charters

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