Dale Earnhardt Jr. reacts to 23XI Racing, Front Row Motorsports holding out of NASCAR charter agreement
Dale Earnhardt Jr. reacted to the surprising news surrounding 23XI Racing, Front Row Motorsports and the latest NASCAR charter agreement following a fascinating weekend for the sport as a whole.
While the playoffs for the Cup Series began last Sunday in Atlanta, the biggest story to come out of the weekend involved the two teams holding out of NASCAR’s charter agreement. Following the news, Earnhardt Jr. tried to make sense of the situation as a whole, wondering what 23XI and Front Row hope to accomplish.
“This is so interesting,” Earnhardt Jr. said, regarding 23XI Racing and Front Row not signing the agreement, via the latest episode of the Dale Jr. Download. “I could not believe this came down the way it did, but apparently everybody signs the charter agreement, except for 23XI which is not a big shocker. Front Row also didn’t sign, which is a shocker. … Denny’s listening to this, and he’s going to text me all the reasons why I’m wrong. We always have — when I talk charters, we always have a Denny Hamlin conversation later in the week. I was really, really surprised that the teams split.
“Now, I felt like when they started meeting with NASCAR individually that NASCAR had gained the upper hand. If the teams are all going to band together and really have leverage, they have to stay together, right? So when NASCAR started meeting with them individually, that was going to erode the trust and confidence and teamwork that the RTA had. A lot of their leverage, as a group, went away. Now, Denny and 23XI, they believe they have all this leverage, and their leverage did not change, and that’s fine.
“When NASCAR started meeting with the teams individually, they could get them in the room and go, ‘Oh, come on, man, you don’t — you know, you guys, you don’t want to, you know, make this, come on.’ They could have these conversations and soften them up a little bit, and over time, it seemed to work.”
Continuing, Earnhardt Jr. tried to see the other side and why many teams did ink the charter agreement, including Trackhouse Racing and Hendrick Motorsports.
“I know they went back and forth on a lot of different things, and you know, that we’ve had some conversations that we’ve heard,” Earnhardt Jr. added. “We’ve heard, you know, Justin Marks and other people coming out, and Jeff Gordon, all these people commenting that, ‘Look, it’s probably the best deal we were going to get. NASCAR made it clear that that was the last they were done negotiating. Didn’t get everything we wanted. There were some things we liked, some things we didn’t like,’ and I feel like that’s expected, part of the process.
“The deal is not eternity. You get the opportunity to negotiate this again down the road. The idea in my head is that every time it’s renegotiated, the teams will acquire more, right? NASCAR’s not going to dial it back, tighten it up. NASCAR’s not going to take away. They’re going to the teams, much like we’ve seen in other sports, when these sorts of discussions start happening, teams acquire more over time. They didn’t get everything they wanted. Yes, that’s unfortunate. I’m sure Denny Hamlin, sitting at this table, would tell us why that’s terrible for his team going forward, and how this doesn’t work for them, but in a handful of years, they get a chance to renegotiate this and try to acquire more of what they’re after.”
In the end, NASCAR had all the leverage, so it doesn’t surprise Earnhardt Jr. that many of the teams signed the agreement, and once they split up, 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports lost their leg to stand on.
“NASCAR has all the leverage, and they knew it,” Earnhardt Jr. said, “and they tried to work with the teams, but it was, I think, at some point, Jim France and Steve Phelps and those guys go, ‘We’ve worked around, we ran around. We’ve danced around this bush for months and months and months, we’ve made certain adjustments, but there’s things that we’re standing firm on. This is it.’
“I thought that the teams would hold out longer, I guess. I was a bit surprised that they signed, I didn’t see that coming. I felt the teams would hold out longer, but apparently the message was clear from NASCAR to these teams that signed that, ‘This is it. Take it or leave it.’”
Alas, 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports feel like they’re fight a losing battle at the moment, but Dale Earnhardt Jr. and many around the NASCAR world are interested to see where it all goes. Regardless, the Cup Series will move forward, even if it means the two teams aren’t a part of it in 2025.