NASCAR season hits final 6 weeks under shadow of antitrust lawsuit filed by 2 of its teams

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — In the NASCAR-themed “Days of Thunder” movie, there is a scene where the Big John character modeled after series founder Bill France Sr. threatens a pair of feuding drivers.

Tired of the on-track antics between drivers loosely based on Dale Earnhardt and a combination of Geoff Bodine and Tim Richmond, Big John warns of the consequences to come if they don't stop wrecking each other.

“You trade paint one more time, you so much as touch, I’m gonna black flag the two of you,” Big John says in the movie, “and take apart your race cars for 300 laps. Then, if you pass inspection and you put your cars back together, I might let you back into the race.”

There was some truth in that scene in that NASCAR, its inspectors, race control officials and executives are in charge and can interpret the rules as they see fit. It has played out over and over since NASCAR was formed by the France family in 1948 — a car has trouble passing inspection for some sort of infraction or the same team finds that it has been “randomly selected” for a thorough teardown week after week.

Should 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports be worried?

After all, the two teams just filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR alleging “anti-competitive terms” in the charter agreement reached last month. The lawsuit is going to be a topic for the rest of the season, which is now well into the playoffs and includes six more races.

23XI is owned by retired NBA great Michael Jordan and three-time Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin, who actively drives for Joe Gibbs Racing. The team fields cars for Bubba Wallace and regular-season Cup Series champion Tyler Reddick. Hamlin and Reddick are both racing for the Cup Series title.

Front Row does not have any drivers in the playoffs, but that doesn't mean that Bob Jenkins' cars won't be subjected to intense scrutiny starting Friday when the garage opens for inspection at Talladega Superspeedway.

Hamlin, who has already been dealt one severe penalty this season, said he is hopeful there is no retribution by NASCAR toward him, the cars he owns, his teammates at JGR or the Front Row drivers.

“I have enough faith in them that they're going to be professionals,” Hamlin said. "They can separate Denny the driver that's on the racetrack on Sunday from Denny that's the owner on Monday through Friday. Certainly, there's been things in the past that have been conspiracy theories, but you can't get into that stuff.

“Certainly, they'll respect myself and my (JGR) team because right now the most important thing to me is trying to run for this championship over the next six weeks.”

Talladega is a tricky track with strict rules designed for safety purposes that can be arbitrarily applied. For example, a yellow line circles the Alabama superspeedway and drivers are prohibited from using it to gain position or to force another driver below the line to preserve position.

It is the officials in the NASCAR scoring tower who rule on yellow line violations and it was never more scrutinized than in 2008 when Tony Stewart was declared the winner at Talladega even though Regan Smith beat him to the finish line. Smith had gone below the yellow line to edge ahead of Stewart, who had clearly forced Smith beyond track limits with a blocking maneuver.

Smith believed he was robbed by NASCAR's ruling.

“I always got told that the rule is, if you get forced down there, then you're the winner of the race and on the last lap, anything goes,” Smith said that day. “I got forced down there.”

Just one year earlier in a Truck Series race at Daytona International Speedway, Johnny Benson went below the yellow line in a three-wide finish. NASCAR said at the time that Benson’s move was legal because the rule had wiggle room: if a driver can see the checkered flag waving, then essentially anything goes over the final push to the finish line.

Come this Sunday, if Hamlin or Reddick or any of the drivers whose teams are involved in litigation against NASCAR find themselves near the yellow line, who knows how the ruling might go?

23XI and Front Row have hired Jeffrey Kessler, a top antitrust attorney to represent them. He said he was not concerned.

“My experience is that having a lot of cases against sports leagues, sports organizations, is that their lawyers advise them, ‘Do not mess around with the other side because that’s the worst thing you can do' when I call on them in court,” Kessler said. "We don't usually see players face retribution, we don't see our other plaintiffs face retribution, and I would be surprised if it happens here. But if it happens, we certainly know what to do about it.”

Hamlin heads to Talladega ranked fifth in the playoff standings. Reddick, his driver at 23XI and the spring winner in Alabama, is ninth and could be eliminated from the playoffs if he doesn’t move into the top eight after next week’s elimination race in Charlotte.

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

Jenna Fryer, The Associated Press