Michael Jordan vs. NASCAR: What it feels like inside the Charlotte courtroom
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Antitrust trial in Charlotte pits Michael Jordan, Hamlin vs. NASCAR’s charter system.
- Day 3 of trial featured Bob Jenkins, owner of Front Row Motorsports and a co-plaintiff.
- Michael Jordan will likely testify later in trial, which is expected to last 2 weeks.
The trial that may change NASCAR forever entered its third day Wednesday, as about 80 people crowded into an ornate Charlotte courtroom and tried to figure out what the scoreboard is showing so far.
We’re still in the first quarter of what is supposed to be approximately a two-week trial, one in which NASCAR team owners Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin are fighting NASCAR about its charter system and the way it runs its business.
I found an empty seat on the third row of the courtroom Wednesday, and by chance found myself staring for the next seven hours at the back of what may be the most famous bald head in the world. Jordan sat in the first row, as he has on every day of the trial. MJ hasn’t testified yet, but he almost certainly will in the next few days. That’s going to be electric.
On Wednesday, the electricity was only administered in occasional bursts. At other times, it was a snoozefest. Like many trials, this one alternates between the fascinating and the mundane.
Part of Wednesday, for instance, was spent arguing about what the phrase “take it or leave it” meant. Another part concerned whether some NASCAR employee was the “vice president of strategy” or the “executive vice president of strategy” at a certain point in his life. This reminded me of “The Office” episode when Dwight kept wanting everyone to call him the assistant regional manager rather than the assistant to the regional manager.
The Potter Courtroom is larger than you’d expect, with 10 tall windows that are shuttered but still allow a few slivers of sunlight. The courtroom is split right down the middle in terms of where people sit, just like at a wedding: Jordan and Hamlin’s people are on the left, the NASCAR people are on the right. A number of reporters are scattered around both sides.
The nine-person jury sits on the left in the front (six people will actually decide NASCAR’s fate; three of the jurors are alternates). The courtroom sketch artist — useful in a trial where the media is allowed no cell phones or cameras — is back left. Judge Kenneth Bell is right in the middle, keeping the trial moving and funnier than you’d expect.
The only clock in the courtroom is on the back wall and extremely hard to see. It makes it feel like time stands still in the courtroom, in the same way it does in a dream or a casino.
And the casino analogy isn’t that far off, because this antitrust trial is a major gamble for all involved. A settlement would have made sense in a lot of ways, but that ship has probably sailed. You won’t believe — or maybe you would — how many lawyers are at the tables, for both sides. Somebody is going to be very happy when this is all over, and someone is going to be angry and working on an appeal, but a whopping legal fee will come due regardless.
Random facts have bounced around the courtroom for three days. One unnamed race team apparently spent $3 million one year on “pit guns,” trying to shave a few tenths of a second off their pit stop tire changes. Hamlin turns out to be paid $14 million per year by Joe Gibbs Racing to drive a racecar. (A person deep inside the NASCAR world heard this number and told me that several of the other top drivers will undoubtedly use it to renegotiate their own deals).
There have been fireworks already, too, many of them administered courtesy of Hamlin, who co-owns 23XI racing with Jordan. That race team refused to sign NASCAR’s latest charter agreement in September 2024, as did Front Row Motorsports. Of the 15 race teams offered that deal, the other 13 did sign it. Jordan’s team and Front Row Motorsports sued instead, alleging that NASCAR is an unlawful monopoly.
Hamlin, a three-time Daytona 500 winner, was the first witness called in the trial. He testified Monday and Tuesday and said that agreeing to NASCAR’s charter proposal would have been akin to signing his own “death certificate” as an owner in the sport.
Then came Scott Prime, a NASCAR executive, who testified in somewhat numbing detail for a large part of both Tuesday and Wednesday. His testimony was mostly about intricacies in various contracts and emails regarding the charter system — which allows chartered NASCAR teams to have a guaranteed spot in every race field rather than having to qualify each week.
Then on Wednesday afternoon came fast-food franchise guru Bob Jenkins, who owns Front Row Motorsports and said he has lost money for 22 straight years doing it. Still, Jenkins has persevered in the sport because of his love for it — he was an “early adopter” Dale Earnhardt Sr. fan as a teenager, as he said, and never stopped being entranced by the sport.
“They’d say, ‘Drivers, start your engines,’” Jenkins said, “and I’d get choked up.”
Jenkins did lose his faith gradually in NASCAR’s revenue model, however.
“This is not about bashing the France family,” Jenkins testified about the family that began NASCAR in the 1940s and has run the sport ever since. “They’ve made a lot of great decisions. This charter agreement is not one of them.”
Although Hamlin has been made very rich by his skill as a driver, as an owner he and Jordan believe the way NASCAR does business is not sustainable. Hamlin and Jordan and the NASCAR defense have all been silent after court each day, but Hamlin did write on X Tuesday night:
“My lawyers dont want me to tweet, Or X or whatever this is, but they are asleep. I just wanted to tell you that I love you guys and I will not stop fighting for you and what is right.”
Judge Bell, meanwhile, grew angry at the NASCAR defense team by the end of the day Wednesday for bringing up two items in court that they weren’t supposed to in front of the jury. After Bell dismissed the jury for the day, he scolded NASCAR’s attorneys, saying there would be “significant” consequences for another error like that.
Even if there are no more errors, though, there are about to be significant consequences at this trial. Plus, after days of watching, Michael Jordan, the former NBA alpha male turned NASCAR owner, is about to come off the bench and get inserted into the game. As both fine theater and a harbinger for what stock-car racing will look like in the future, this trial is well worth watching.
This story was originally published December 4, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
