23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports have filed a motion requesting the Court rule on and throw out NASCAR's counterclaim against them and Curtis Polk.
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The filing, which the teams made on Friday, requested a ruling on an expedited schedule. The current deadline for summary motion judgements is Oct. 1, but the teams requested an earlier ruling so that they can have clarity about the trial.
They want to know if NASCAR's counterclaim will be part of the December antitrust lawsuit trial. The teams also noted that if the Court does not grant summary judgment against NASCAR's counterclaim, they will file a motion to have the counterclaim moved to a separate trial in 2026.
MORE: Motion for summary judgement on counterclaim
"It is not possible to conduct a jury trial over two separate antitrust cases in 10 trial days," the filing stated.
What is this counterclaim? Back in March, NASCAR's legal time filed a 30-page document alleging that Front Row Motorsports, 23XI Racing, and 23XI co-owner Curtis Polk "embarked on a strategy to threaten, coerce, and extort NASCAR into meeting their demands for better contract and financial terms."
NASCAR alleged in its counterclaim that the strategies and threats included group boycotts, negative media campaigns, threats/coercion to other teams, and a meeting with at least one media partner to affect negotiations for a new media agreement.
23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports disputed these claims in Friday's request for summary judgement.
"Despite repeated conclusory assertions in the counterclaim about 'boycotts' of NASCAR races, exhibitions, and other commercial activities, there is nothing in the discovery record to support these boycott allegations," the filing stated.
"Indeed, the allegations about 'boycotts' of NASCAR races or other commercial events have effectively been abandoned by NASCAR, as the only 'boycott' NASCAR continues to allege is the claim that the racing teams did not attend one quarterly meeting of the Team Owner Council."
Their legal team stated that NASCAR can not "raise a genuine issue of material fact in support of its assertion" that the teams engaged in a conspiracy. The filing also said that NASCAR voluntarily agreed to joint negotiations leading up to the 2025 Charter Agreement and that the teams also agreed to one-on-one negotiations, which NASCAR wanted.
Additionally, the motion for summary judgement said that the "undisputed evidence" showed that NASCAR dictated the terms of the Charter Agreement as opposed to the teams.
Finally, the motion for summary judgement said that NASCAR can not "raise a genuine issue of material fact showing the required harm to competition or antitrust injury."
Another key part of Friday's filing focused on Front Row Motorsports. The legal team said that no evidence exists showing that the Bob Jenkins-owned team engaged in any of the alleged conduct.
Specifically, FRM did not participate in joint negotiations, did not participate in media activities regarding negotiations, and did not have a representative on the Team Negotiating Committee.
"NASCAR's counterclaim expert reports do not cite any specific allegedly anticompetitive conduct by Front Row—in fact, Front Row is barely mentioned at all," the filing stated.
