Denny Hamlin lays out next steps for 23XI, Front Row moving forward amid NASCAR lawsuit

23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports filed a lawsuit against NASCAR, and Denny Hamlin is laying out the next step. On the Actions Detrimental podcast, Hamlin revealed what 23XI and Front Row will do next for the 2025 Cup Series season and beyond.

“We stated that we’ll be filing for an injunction. That’s the first thing that has to happen,” Denny Hamlin said. “The injunction is basically we’re going to seek relief, and in injunctions, you typically have to show — again, I’m not a lawyer, so be careful here — you have to show irreparable harm if you don’t stop it.

“We’re trying to stop NASCAR from taking our charters. Obviously, there would be massive irreparable harm there. We’re going to go to the courts and say listen, let us operate as a chartered team while this lawsuit goes on over the next year to two years. If you lose your charters and you win the lawsuit, then what? You can’t go back. It’s going to be tough to operate that way. As 23XI, we’re prepared for any outcome. I think Michael [Jordan] has stated and I’ve stated to the team we will not let this affect our employees whatsoever in any kind of way, and any financial distress is going to have to fall directly on the owners. It will not fall on our people whatsoever. We will not allow that to happen.”

More on the 23XI and Front Row’s lawsuit against NASCAR

On Wednesday night, NASCAR filed a response to the injunction 23XI and Front Row are seeking in the lawsuit. The organization listed a summary of what their arguments will be.

It states: “Injunction, Defendants are working to prepare oppositions that provide argument, applicable law, and evidentiary support to demonstrate Defendants’ positions: 1) Plaintiffs are seeking a mandatory injunction that is only warranted in the most extraordinary circumstances (which are not present here) since they are seeking to alter the status quo through an injunction requiring NASCAR to provide Charters for 2025 and beyond notwithstanding that the time to sign Charters for 2025 has expired; 2) Plaintiffs cannot establish irreparable harm since plaintiffs and their counsel have confirmed that Plaintiffs’ teams will compete as open teams in 2025, which means that money damages can compensate Plaintiffs even if they were to ultimately prevail; and 3) Plaintiffs cannot establish a likelihood of success on the merits for multiple reasons, including that this is a dispute over contract terms, not an antitrust case. That preparation requires communication with employees directly affected by Hurricane Milton.”

On3’s Jonathan Howard contributed to this story.