Judge orders NASCAR teams to hand over some financial documents in mixed ruling

12 NASCAR teams have been told to disclose some of their financial records to the league, but they will not be forced to give their full details.

The ruling came on Wednesday as part of 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports' ongoing legal dispute with NASCAR, which has been dragging on for months and looks set to continue for several more.

The teams were in court on Tuesday arguing that their financial record should be kept private and admitted doubts that they would remain so if handed over, warning of 'catastrophic' damage within the sport if they were leaked.

Adam Ross, representing the teams, said: “It would be absolutely devastating to these race teams if their competitors were able to find out sponsorships on the cars, driver salaries and all revenue streams. It cannot make its way into the public realm.”

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The teams will give significantly less than NASCAR had requested, with only “annual top-line financial data (total revenue, total costs, and net profits/losses) on an anonymized, average per-car basis for each year dating back to 2014.”

NASCAR, meanwhile, had asked for all financial details related to running a team across all of the sport's divisions including driver and staff salaries, R&D costs, and specific earnings from sponsorships and manufacturers.

U.S. District Court judge Kenneth D. Bell once again took time to express his bafflement at the lengths both NASCAR and 23XI/FRM are going to in order to bring the case to trial rather than reach a settlement.

“I am amazed at the effort going into burning this house down over everybody’s heads,” he said. “But, I’m the fire marshal, and I will be here in December if need be.”

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