Judge denies 23XI Racing, Front Row Motorsports motion for expedited discovery against NASCAR

In the first major update in the NASCAR lawsuit, 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports have had their motion for expedited discovery denied. A decision on whether or not a preliminary injunction will be granted will come as early as tomorrow or possibly next week.

What does this mean? It means that NASCAR won’t have to let 23XI Racing and Front Row into their financials. This applies to specifically-requested documents from the teams. The teams argued that they needed expedited discovery prior to a decision on the preliminary injunction being made.

This does not mean the preliminary injunction will be approved or denied. It means 23XI won’t have access to the requested documents, yet. They were hoping to use those documents to support their argument for the injunction.

Bob Pockrass of FOX Sports reported on the denial. This is only the beginning, folks.

The motion by the teams for expedited discovery to get some documents from NASCAR before the preliminary injunction hearing Monday has been denied.

— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) October 31, 2024

In the filing, the judge determined that 23XI Racing and Front Row’s requests were too broad. The requests also asked for documents that were related to the “crux” or main issue of the complaint – NASCAR’s anticompetitive actions.

The judge did write that the requests passed the test as far as showing a likelihood of success on the merits, it was not a narrow enough request to be approved. The timeline for receiving the documents was also too short, only five days. Pockrass said as much when providing further context.

Ruling today against the teams in denying their request for the expedited production of documents wasn’t much of a surprise. With the injunction hearing set for Monday, wasn’t much time for documents to be produced (or would have had to postpone the hearing). https://t.co/7mqKaPPKay

— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) October 31, 2024

Finally, the judge determined that 23XI Racing and Front Row argued they already had enough evidence to prove their argument for the preliminary injunction. They also failed to show the harm in not being granted the expedited discovery.

23XI Racing files new response regarding injunction

Things are starting to heat up, at least early in this lawsuit. Last night 23XI Racing and Front Row filed another response. This was about the preliminary injunction itself. The teams responded to the latest NASCAR argument against the injunction.

There are a number of points made in the latest filings from 23XI Racing and Front Row. Reading through the reply, here is the best way I can summarize the arguments made.

• The preliminary injunction would not change the status quo. It would return all parties to their previously “uncontested status.” In other words, things would operate as they did this year and the year before that and so on.
• Teams are unable to avoid irreparable harm if an injunction is not granted. Even to race as “open” teams, they must sign an agreement to release antitrust claims against NASCAR.
• 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports would lose “goodwill” in the sport. Goodwill is hard to quantify monetarily, producing irreparable harm to the teams.
• Cites SRX shutting down and the only full-time open team to compete in the Cup Series since 2016 as proof of NASCAR’s monopoly power and difficulty of operating outside of the charter agreement.
• NASCAR does not refute its monopoly power or the use of “exclusionary acts” that restrict competition in regard to antitrust law.
• The preliminary injunction will cause no harm to NASCAR but could cause unknown harm to 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports. It will only make NASCAR operate under the current status quo.

Additionally, there are instances where 23XI argues against the way case law was cited.