CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Retired NBA great Michael Jordan took the stand in the landmark NASCAR antitrust case and testified Friday that he has been a fan of the stock car series since he was a child but felt he had little choice but to sue to force changes in a business model he sees as shortchanging teams and drivers risking their lives to keep the sport going.

Jordan testified before a packed courtroom for an hour. His celebrity drew quips from the judge and even a defense attorney as he outlined why the team he co-owns, 23XI, had joined Front Row Motorsports in going to court against the top auto racing series in the United States.

“Someone had to step forward and challenge the entity,” soft-spoken Jordan told the jury. “I sat in those meetings with longtime owners who were brow-beaten for so many years trying to make change. I was a new person, I wasn’t afraid. I felt I could challenge NASCAR as a whole. I felt as far as the sport, it needed to be looked at from a different view.”

Jordan’s highly anticipated appearance followed dramatic testimony from Heather Gibbs, the daughter-in-law of race team owner Joe Gibbs, about the chaotic six-hour period in which teams had to sign an extension or forfeit the charters that guarantee revenue week to week throughout NASCAR’s 38-race season.

“The document was something in business you would never sign,” said Heather Gibbs, who is also a licensed real estate agent. “It was like a gun to your head: If you don’t sign, you have nothing.”

Charters are the equivalent of the franchise model used in other sports, and NASCAR guarantees every chartered car a spot in every race, plus a defined payout from the series. The system was created in 2016, and, during the two-plus years of bitter negotiations on an extension, teams begged for the renewable charters to be made permanent for revenue stability.

When NASCAR refused to make them permanent and gave the teams six hours in September 2024 to sign the 112-page extension, 23XI and Front Row Motorsports were the only two organizations out of 15 to refuse. They instead filed the antitrust suit, and the trial opened Monday to hear their allegations that NASCAR is a monopolistic bully. 23XI is co-owned by Jordan and three-time Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin, and Front Row is owned by fast food franchiser Bob Jenkins.

Jordan testified that 23XI bought a third charter late in 2024 for $28 million even with all the uncertainty.

“I’m pretty sure they know I love to win,” the six-time NBA champion said. “Denny convinced me getting a third driver improved our chances to win, so I dove in.”

Like other witnesses this week, Jordan described a NASCAR that refused to discuss options or potential changes to the charter system, which he supports. He was asked why 23XI didn’t sign the extensions last fall.

“One, I didn’t think it was economically viable. Two, it said you could not sue NASCAR; that was an antitrust violation, I felt. Three, they gave us an ultimatum I didn’t think was fair to 23XI,” Jordan said, adding: “I wanted a partnership, and permanent charters wasn’t even a consideration. The pillars that the teams wanted, no one on the NASCAR side even negotiated or compromised. They were not even open-minded to welcome those conversations, so this is where we ended up.”

Jordan referred to the NBA business model, which shares approximately half its revenue with players, far more than NASCAR.

“The revenue split was far less than any business I’ve ever been a part of. We didn’t think we’d ever get to what basketball was getting, but we wanted to move in that direction,” he said. “The thing I see in NASCAR that I think is absent is a shared responsibility of growth as well as loss.”

Jordan said he owns 60% of 23XI and has invested $35 million to $40 million in the team. Jenkins testified earlier this week that he has never turned a profit since launching his NASCAR team in the early 2000s and estimates he has lost $100 million even while winning the Daytona 500 in 2021.

Heather Gibbs earlier told the jury how she became co-owner of Joe Gibbs Racing the day after her husband, Coy, unexpectedly died in his sleep the same night their son Ty won NASCAR’s second-tier Xfinity Series championship in 2022. Coy Gibbs had moved into a leadership role with JGR following the death of his older brother, J.D., in 2019.

Because Joe Gibbs had lost both his sons and had built the team as a legacy for his family, his daughter-in-law took an active role in the organization and personally participated in negotiations for the charter extensions. When NASCAR made its final offer at 6 p.m. on a Friday with just hours to sign, the agreement did not include permanent charters. Gibbs testified that the Gibbs organization was devastated.

“Everything was going so fast, the legacy of Coy, the legacy of J.D., everyone at JGR was very upset,” she told the jury. She said her father-in-law called NASCAR chairman Jim France pleading for a resolution.

“Joe said, ‘Jim, you can’t do this,'” she said. “And Jim was done with the conversation.”

Heather Gibbs said she had to leave to take her son to a baseball game in Chapel Hill and left worried about her father-in-law, who was 84 at the time.

“I left him sitting in the dark, listening to his blood sugar monitors going off,” she testified. “We decided we had to sign. We can’t lose everything. I did not think it was a fair deal to the teams.”

Joe Gibbs is an NFL Hall of Fame coach as well as a Hall of Fame NASCAR owner. He led the Washington football team to three Super Bowl titles, and JGR has won five Cup Series championships. JGR has 450 employees, has charters for four Cup cars and relies solely on outside sponsorship and investors to keep the team afloat. The team will mark its 35th season next year, and Heather Gibbs told the jury that JGR needs permanent charters to protect its investment in NASCAR.

“It’s the most important point, a permanent place in their history books,” she testified. “It is absolutely vital to the teams for us to know we have security, it can’t be taken away, to know what we’ve invested in is ours.”

Michael Annett, who turned 39 years old this year, has tragically passed away. Annett competed at all three national levels of the sport, and was a winner in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts (formerly Xfinity) Series.

Annett was a full-time Cup driver from 2014 through 2016 as well, starting 106 races and placing as high as 13th in the 2015 Daytona 500. He drove for both Tommy Baldwin and later Harry Scott in his NASCAR Cup career. As a driver in the secondary level of the sport, Annett competed in 321 races between 2008 and 2021, including several seasons with JR Motorsports.

His lone victory as a NASCAR driver came with the team co-owned by Dale Earnhardt Jr., winning the 2019 season-opener at Daytona. He placed as high as fifth in the championship standings, which came in 2012 while driving for Richard Petty Motorsports.

Michael Annett, JR Motorsports Chevrolet

Photo by: Sean Gardner / Getty Images

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the entire Annett family with the passing of our friend Michael Annett,” said JR Motorsports in a statement. “Michael was a key member of JRM from 2017 until he retired in 2021 and was an important part in turning us into the four-car organization we remain today.”

Annett only started nine Truck races, earning a runner-up finish at Kentucky in 2008, finishing half-a-second back of race winner Johnny Benson Jr.

Annett also won twice as an ARCA driver, taking the checkered flag at Talladega in 2007 and Daytona in 2008.

Annett made his final start at the national level of NASCAR in 2021, finishing eleventh in the Phoenix finale. He also missed a handful of races that year due to a stress fracture in his right femur.

No details were provided regarding the nature of his passing at this time. 

NASCAR world remembers Annett

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– The Motorsport.com Team

Michael Annett, a longtime competitor in NASCAR’s national series has passed away, he was 39 years old.

Born in Des Moines, Iowa, Annett began his racing journey after a stint in hockey, transitioning to motorsports in his early 20s.

He first made headlines in the ARCA Menards Series, earning two victories at Talladega Superspeedway in 2007 and Daytona International Speedway in 2008. These wins paved the way for his move into NASCAR.

Annett competed across all three of NASCAR’s top divisions during his career. He made nine starts in the Craftsman Truck Series, highlighted by a second-place finish at Kentucky Speedway in 2008. His time in the NASCAR Cup Series spanned 106 races from 2014 to 2016, driving for teams including Germain Racing, Rusty Wallace Racing, Richard Petty, Tommy Baldwin Racing, HScott Motorsports and more throughout his career.

The bulk of Annett’s success came in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, where he raced in 321 events over 11 seasons. Driving primarily for JR Motorsports in the later stages of his career, Annett scored his lone Xfinity Series victory in the 2019 season opener at Daytona International Speedway.

He recorded 95 top-ten finishes and one pole position in the series.

After battling injuries during the 2021 season, Annett announced his retirement from full-time racing at the end of that year ending a 16 year career.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — NASCAR teams went to the sanctioning body in early 2022 asking for an improved revenue model and argued the system at the time was unsustainable, the president of the series testified Thursday in the antitrust case lodged against the top motorsports series in the United States.

Steve O’Donnell, named president of NASCAR earlier this year, was at that March meeting when representatives of four teams asked that the negotiating window on a new charter agreement open early because they were fighting for their financial survival. The negotiating window was not supposed to open until July 2023.

O’Donnell testified that in that first meeting, four-time series champion Jeff Gordon, now vice chair of Hendrick Motorsports, asked specifically if the Florida-based France family was “open to a new model?”

Ben Kennedy, the great-grandson of NASCAR founder Bill France Sr., told Gordon yes.

But O’Donnell testified that NASCAR chairman Jim France was opposed to a new revenue model.

Thus began more than two years of bitter negotiations on a new charter agreement that was finalized in September 2024. The teams had asked in that first meeting for a deal to be reached by July 2022.

When the final deal was presented to the teams on the eve of the 2024 playoff opener, they were given a six-hour deadline to sign the charter agreements. All but two of 15 organizations signed; Front Row Motorsports and Michael Jordan-owned 23XI Racing refused to sign and instead sued, bringing the case to federal court for what is expected to be a two-week trial.

O’Donnell testified that the team representatives had very specific requests: maximized television revenue, the creation of a more competitive landscape, a new cost model and a potential cost cap.

NASCAR spent the next few months in internal discussions on how to approach the charter renewal process, said O’Donnell, who was called as an adverse witness for the plaintiffs. NASCAR acknowledged the teams were financially struggling, and worried they might create a breakaway series similar to the LIV golf league.

In a presentation made to the board, O’Donnell listed various options that both the teams and NASCAR could take. O’Donnell noted the teams could boycott races, build their cars internally, and race at non-NASCAR owned tracks, or potentially sell their charters to Liberty Media, the commercial rights holder for Formula 1.

“We knew the industry was challenged,” O’Donnell testified.

As far as NASCAR’s options, O’Donnell told the board it could lock down an exclusivity agreement with tracks not owned by NASCAR, dissolve the charter system, or partner directly with the drivers.

A charter is the equivalent of the franchise model used by other sports leagues, but in NASCAR it guarantees a team a spot in the field for all 38 races plus a designated percentage of revenue. The extensions that began this year upped the guaranteed money for every chartered car to $12.5 million in annual revenue, from $9 million.

Denny Hamlin, co-owner of 23XI, and Front Row owner Bob Jenkins have both testified it costs $20 million to bring a single car to the track for all 38 races. That figure does not include any overhead, operating costs or a driver’s salary.

Jenkins opened the fourth day of the trial with continued testimony. On Wednesday the fast-food franchiser said he was a passionate NASCAR fan who fulfilled a longtime dream when he was finally able to own a car in the top racing series in the United States.

But he said he has lost $100 million since becoming a team owner in the early 2000s — and that’s even with a 2021 victory in the Daytona 500. He said Thursday he “held his nose” when he signed the 2016 charter agreements because he didn’t think the deal was very good for the teams.

When the extensions came in 2024 the weekend the playoffs opened at Atlanta Motor Speedway, he said the 112-page document went “virtually backward in so many ways.” He refused to sign and joined 23XI in filing a lawsuit.

Jenkins said no owners he has spoken to are happy about the new charter agreement because it falls short of so many of their asks. He refused to sign because “I’d reached my tipping point.”

Jenkins said he was upset that Jim France refused a meeting the week before the final 2025 offers were presented with four owners who represented nine charters, only to learn France was talking to other team owners.

“Our voice was not being heard,” said Jenkins, who believes NASCAR rammed the 2025 agreement through. “They did put a gun to our head and got a domino effect — teams that said they’d never sign saw their neighbor sign.”

Jenkins also said teams are upset about the current Next Gen car, which was introduced in 2022 as a cost-saving measure. The car was supposed to cost $205,000 but parts must be purchased from specified NASCAR vendors and teams cannot make any repairs themselves so the actual cost is now closer to double the price.

“To add $150,000 to $200,000 to the cost of the car — I don’t think any of the teams anticipated that,” Jenkins testified. “What’s anti-competitive is I don’t own that car. I can’t use that car anywhere else.”

ABU DHABI — After 23 races, spanning nearly nine months and five continents, the 2025 Formula 1 World Championship is down to three drivers in the season finale.

McLaren’s Lando Norris leads the 2025 Formula 1 World Championship by 12 points over Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and 16 over teammate Oscar Piastri, coming into the Dec. 7 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix season finale race.

In just nine races, since the Dutch Grand Prix where Piastri and Verstappen finished 1-2 as Norris finished 18th, Verstappen gained 108 points on Piastri and 58 points on Norris — who gained 46 points on Piastri.

After his Dutch GP win, Piastri led the standings by 34 over Norris and 104 over Verstappen. Now, Piastri is behind both of them after this stretch:

Max Verstappen hasn’t finished off of the podium since August, making him the favorite for the title coming into the finale. However, practice showed Lando Norris is not going to go down without a fight.

Norris topped Verstappen in both practices but Verstappen closed the gap, lagging by 0.363-of-a-second in FP1 and then just 0.008 in FP2.

Meanwhile, Piastri clocked in 11th in FP1, almost seven tenths off of Norris, before having to hand the car to INDYCAR star Pato O’Ward in FP2.

McLaren stated they will use team orders if it becomes apparent one driver is going to win the title over another. Early on, that appears to be Norris.

Norris was going to be the favorite, no matter how practice went. He won last year’s race after leading every lap, one-upping Max Verstappen’s effort the year before where he won but spent six laps not out in front.

F1 World Championship Clinching Scenarios 2025

With a podium finish (third or better), Norris can win the championship no matter what Verstappen does.

• Ex: If Norris finished fourth (13 points) and Verstappen won (25 points), Verstappen would win the title by a point

Meanwhile, Verstappen has to finish on the podium to keep his championship hopes alive:

• If Verstappen finished third (15 points) and Norris finished 11th (no points), Verstappen would win by three points
  • If he finished fourth (12 points) and Norris finished 11th, Norris would win on a tiebreaker.

Here’s how the clinching scenarios break down for Norris based on Verstappen’s finishing position:

• If Verstappen finishes second (18 points):
  • Norris can finish no worse than seventh (6 points)
    • Norris would win tiebreaker with equal wins (7) but more second-place finishes (8 vs. 6)
• If Verstappen finishes third (15 points):
  • Norris can finish no worse than eighth (4 points)

However, Verstappen and Norris still have to watch out for Oscar Piastri. With a 16-point deficit to Norris, Piastri must finish better than second (18 points) to get the championship. Finishing third (15 points) won’t be enough:

• If Piastri wins while Verstappen finishes second and Norris finishes sixth or worse, then Piastri would get the title.
• If Piastri finished second while Verstappen finished fourth or worse and Norris finished 10th or worse, Piastri would get the title.

All three drivers each have seven wins this season.

F1 2025 World Championship Finale Weekend Schedule at Abu Dhabi

Jonathan Fjeld is the co-owner of the The Racing Experts, LLC. He has been with TRE since 2010.

A Twin Valley, MN, native, Fjeld became a motorsports fan at just three years old (first race was the 2002 Pennsylvania 500). He worked as a contributor and writer for TRE from 2010-18. Since then, he has stepped up and covered 24 NASCAR race weekends and taken on a larger role with TRE. He became the co-owner and managing editor in 2023 and has guided the site to massive growth in that time.

Fjeld has covered a wide array of stories and moments over the years, including Kevin Harvick’s final Cup Series season, the first NASCAR national series disqualification in over 50 years, Shane van Gisbergen’s stunning win in Chicago and the first Cup Series race at Road America in 66 years – as well as up-and-coming drivers’ stories and stories from inside the sport, like the tech it takes for Hendrick Motorsports to remain a top-tier team.

Currently, he resides in Albuquerque, N.M., where he works for KOB 4, an NBC station. He works as a digital producer and does on-air reports. He loves spending time with friends and family, playing and listening to music, exploring new places, being outdoors, reading books and writing among other activities. You can email him at fjeldjonathan@gmail.com

In late morning of the fourth day of the “23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports v. NASCAR” antitrust trial, NASCAR president Steve O’Donnell took the stand as an adverse witness called by plaintiffs’ lead attorney Jeffrey Kessler.

What soon became abundantly clear on Thursday at the Western District of North Carolina courthouse were the points of emphasis Kessler would use to try to establish anti-competitive behavior on the part of NASCAR toward its chartered race teams.

Kessler asked O’Donnell repeatedly about the exclusivity provisions in NASCAR’s sanctioning agreements with race tracks, most prominently properties owned by Speedway Motorsports.

Other significant issues included the potential threat to NASCAR of competing racing series—notably SRX; the lack of permanence of the charters under the 2025 agreement; and governance of the sport, given the specific exclusion of the so-called “three strikes” provision in the current charter agreement.

To that last point, O’Donnell testified, NASCAR wanted to eliminate team owners’ veto power over cost increases in order to grow the sport.

With the three-strikes provision (owners with voting power) in place, O’Donnell said, “We would not have been in Mexico City (in 2025), and the TV partner (Amazon Prime Video) would not have paid the money they did.”

Similarly, three years of races on the Chicago Street Course—initially a hard sell to the NASCAR board headed by chairman and CEO Jim France—cost NASCAR an estimated $55 million, but the enterprise served a broader purpose.

“Amazon said there was no way they would have engaged with our sport without that,” O’Donnell told NASCAR outside counsel Chris Yates after Kessler finished his questioning. “It was a long shot, but we were able to pull it off, and it was a successful event.”

O’Donnell explained that the sanction agreements with Speedway Motorsports were expanded from a single year to five years in 2016 to coincide with the initial term of the charter agreements, which changed the economic paradigm of the sport.

The exclusivity provisions in the sanctions were expanded starting in 2016, as NASCAR strove to establish a predictable revenue model that would function under the charter agreements with the race teams.

In his initial questioning, Kessler asked O’Donnell about a litany of contingency plans NASCAR had considered, if race teams opted not to sign the 2025 charter agreement.

Kessler pointed to SRX as a potential competitor to NASCAR, and O’Donnell acknowledged the sanctioning body had become more concerned with the new series as it evolved in a direction more closely resembling a NASCAR product.

However, both NASCAR drivers and team owners (23XI principal Denny Hamlin, Brad Keselowski, Chase Elliott and Justin Marks) drove in SRX races, which took place exclusively on short tracks.

O’Donnell also pointed out that SRX was owned by Tony Stewart, who simultaneously held NASCAR Cup Series charters as co-owner of Stewart-Haas Racing.

O’Donnell’s testimony, which will conclude Friday, followed the completion of the cross-examination and redirect of Front Row Motorsports owner Bob Jenkins, one of the plaintiffs in the case.

Earlier in the morning, concluding his testimony, Front Row Motorsports (FRM) owner Bob Jenkins admitted he incorrectly stated Wednesday that it costs FRM $20 million per season to a run a single car in the NASCAR Cup Series. The Defense cited FRM’s own financial records, which showed that the most it has spent in a year on running two Cup Series car was around $28 million ($14 million per car).

At the close of the court session on Thursday, Judge Kenneth D. Bell expressed displeasure with the pace of the trial and urged attorneys from both sides to use discipline in the questioning of witnesses.

As a parting shot, Bell added that some of the questioning involved “beating the horses well beyond their deathbeds.”

The pace of the trial may affect the appearance of team owner Roger Penske as a witness for NASCAR. Yates said Penske’s only available day is Monday, and the plaintiffs have not agreed to let him testify before they have rested their case.