23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports opened an antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR and Jim France. The trial is set to begin on December 1st, 2025.
In pretrial, messages from behind the scenes have been made public record. Among those is a message between 23XI Racing co-owner Michael Jordan and his CFO.
The message outlined the positives and negatives of co-owner Denny Hamlin. Hamlin is highly involved in the operations of 23XI Racing while also driving his No. 11 for Joe Gibbs Racing in the NASCAR Cup Series.
Joe Gibbs sends a blunt letter to court regarding NASCAR lawsuit
In the message the CFO stated, “He’s a terrible business man.” You can read the full message below:
It was sent from the CFO to Michael Jordan.
The following message was from March 2024:
“The positive. Denny is a great driver one of the best of all time,” the email opened.
“He is completely driven for 23XI to succeed. He knows more about how to prepare to drive a race and how to execute that [email typo] almost any other driver.”
“The negatives. He does not know as much as he thinks he does about race strategy and the other nuts and bolts of racing. Denny relies on regurgitating what Chris Gabehart says as if it were gospel.”
“He’s a terrible business man. He ascribes to the dumb theory that if [type] spend more money it will translate into wins and speed. This is only true to a small extent.”
“He is always telling the team that money that money is no object and that he is making the decisions on how to spend it. This pushes the staff to make decisions that are not necessarily the best but they feel they have to make those decisions.”
“Whenever Curtis or I disagree with him he accuses us of not valuing him which is very far from the truth and why we had to have the meeting at the Grove during the sponsor summit last year.”
The email concluded, “His is the only position that matters.”
This is far from the first time that interesting messages have surfaced in the court. Messages from Denny Hamlin, Michael Jordan, Steve Phelps and others have all surfaced.
Michael Jordan texts exposed in a court hearing of NASCAR lawsuit
NASCAR | Joe Gibbs Racing | 23XI Racing | Front Row Motorsports
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