NASCAR exec wanted to ‘knife’ a ‘trash’ racing series. Why it came up at trial
Another set of revealing text messages among high-ranking NASCAR executives were brought up in court Thursday, and this time, the president of the stock car racing series had to answer to them.
Steve O’Donnell spent some of the morning and all the afternoon on the witness stand in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina in uptown Charlotte. The 57-year-old executive was interrogated on a variety of points. But the one that might be most consequential at trial — the trial where two Cup Series teams are accusing NASCAR of being an unlawful monopoly — involved another stock car racing series that, in 2023, was building considerable steam.
The text exchange comes from February 2023. On the thread are O’Donnell, NASCAR commissioner Steve Phelps and executive vice president Scott Prime. It also comes just after the news that a Cup Series owner and driver — Denny Hamlin, who coincidentally also happens to be a plaintiff in this case — had signed a deal to race for Superstar Racing Experience (SRX). SRX was a stock car racing series that was founded by Tony Stewart and debuted in 2021 and, for a moment, was looking like it could be a competitor to NASCAR.
The exact language of the O’Donnell-Phelps-Prime text thread:
Prime: “Oh great, another owner racing in SRX.”
O’Donnell: “This is NASCAR. Pure and simple. Enough. We need legal to take a shot at this.”
Phelps: “Need to put a knife in this trash series.”
O’Donnell, when asked about the text exchange in court Thursday, said he was “concerned with what was happening.”
“I just wanted legal to take a look,” O’Donnell said, sticking to a refrain even after being pressed by plaintiff attorney Jeffrey Kessler. O’Donnell eventually concluded that he was frustrated that NASCAR Cup Series owners and drivers were participating in a series that was “looking more and more like NASCAR.”
He said he felt like the teams and drivers were diluting NASCAR’s product during a pivotal time — just as broadcast rights negotiations were heating up.
“We wanted to obtain as much broadcast revenue as possible,” O’Donnell said.
This exchange was brought up on Day 4 of this antitrust trial for several reasons. The most prominent of which is that 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports are alleging that NASCAR is a monopsony that engaged in anti-competitive practices, damaging the fiscal health of its premier series (Cup) teams.
One of the ways the plaintiff legal team tried to get that point across Thursday was by showing how NASCAR executives reacted to SRX — the race series that occasionally out-rated lower-level NASCAR national series races on TV — being introduced to the American stock car racing market.
There was another message from O’Donnell, which appeared to urge action.
“Wait until (Dale Earnhardt) Jr. says he’s running in an event,” O’Donnell wrote in a text message shown to the jury. “Matter of time.”
NASCAR tracks also put under limelight Thursday
The Cup teams alleged Thursday that the emergence of SRX woke NASCAR up to the idea that the sanctioning body should quickly sign contracts with certain racetracks — short tracks, mainly — that SRX might want to attend.
Two of those tracks, according to the teams, were short tracks in North Carolina: North Wilkesboro Speedway (which returned to NASCAR in May 2023) and Bowman Gray Stadium (which returned to NASCAR in February 2025).
“North Wilkesboro and Bowman Gray next year with Junior and friends if we don’t make moves,” Prime said in another 2023 text exchange with fellow NASCAR officials.
The teams went on to say in court that NASCAR, in response to the threat of competition, went out and signed deals with several tracks owned by Speedway Motorsports that included provisions that excluded other stock car racing series from running there. NASCAR disputes that it was in response to competition but instead a logical business practice — one centered on those racetracks being “loyal” to NASCAR and promoting their event in their markets.
“I wanted everyone to work together to grow the sport,” O’Donnell said.
Other notes from Day 4 of NASCAR vs. 23XI Racing-Front Row Motorsports trial
—NASCAR attorney Chris Yates cross-examined O’Donnell on Thursday and will continue doing so Friday morning. During cross-examination, O’Donnell clarified that NASCAR has invested “probably over $1 billion” to renovate the tracks it owns and sometimes the tracks it doesn’t own to help grow the sport. Teams, O’Donnell said, benefit from the renovated facilities but don’t contribute to the maintenance of tracks.
—Yates also prompted O’Donnell as to why NASCAR — which owns 19 tracks across the country — goes out into other markets and uses separately owned facilities. O’Donnell, simply, said “to grow the sport.” He put data in front of the jurors as well: He said that NASCAR went to race in the streets of downtown Chicago for three years — a deal that lost NASCAR $55 million, O’Donnell said. Similarly, O’Donnell advocated for NASCAR to race in Mexico City, a proposition that led to NASCAR racing there in 2025 and subsequently losing $6 million, O’Donnell said. When asked how such losses could “grow the sport,” O’Donnell responded that he knows with “absolute certainty” that the broadcast deal NASCAR signed would not nearly be as lucrative without such an ambitious schedule.
He explicitly called out Amazon, which became part of NASCAR’s media rights deal as various sports experiment more often with hosting events on streaming platforms: “Amazon said there was no way they’d join NASCAR before Chicago.” O’Donnell also took the opportunity to remind the Cup teams that the lucrative broadcast deal benefits the Cup teams more than any other stakeholder.
—Judge Kenneth Bell told both legal teams at the conclusion of Thursday’s proceedings that he was disappointed with the pace of the trial so far and went on to admonish the lawyers for “beating horses well past their death dates.” He told the legal teams that the trial could last no longer than three weeks. In other words, it must end Dec. 19.
NASCAR’s side said that one of its primary witnesses, Roger Penske, could only attend trial on Monday — but the plaintiffs said that they won’t be fully through their witness list by then. Bell said that the court will not shapeshift its schedule for Penske, adding that “inconvenience is what a federal trial is.”
This story was originally published December 4, 2025 at 7:47 PM with the headline "NASCAR exec wanted to ‘knife’ a ‘trash’ racing series. Why it came up at trial."
