Rick Hendrick and Roger Penske have filed a joint motion seeking to restrict the scope of their depositions in the ongoing 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports v NASCAR antitrust case, just two days after they were named for questioning.
“Movants find themselves, quickly and without much warning, in the unenviable position of being forced to give expansive and unnecessary deposition testimony as a result of wrangling between the parties to a lawsuit that should have settled long before now,” the filing stated. “As explained in greater detail below, Messrs. Hendrick and Penske, in view of their decades-long relationship with Jim France, agreed to give limited testimony regarding non-confidential matters at the trial of this case, but in a way that did not force them to ‘take sides’ in this lawsuit – something which both men have made clear that they cannot and will not do. That has now morphed into an effort by the Plaintiffs to seek testimony potentially regarding HMS’ and Penske’s highly confidential financial and other business information.”
Lawyers for 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports previously argued that NASCAR “sandbagged” them by adding Hendrick and Penske to its witness list late in the process, leaving no opportunity for proper discovery.
Representing Hendrick and Penske, attorney Adam Ross said NASCAR had only recently approached the two team owners to testify, and only in relation to public statements they made encouraging both sides to reach a settlement.
“In just the past few days (and in Mr. Hendrick’s case, at the NASCAR awards banquet following the championship win), Mr. France and his counsel approached Messrs. Hendrick and Penske (separately) and asked if they would be willing to give testimony at trial specifically limited to the high-level contents of the Declarations that both men submitted a number of weeks ago,” Ross said. “Neither man wants to play any role in this lawsuit whatsoever and have made clear that they will not ‘take sides’ in this case. However, in view of their decades-long relationship with Mr. France, they agreed to provide the requested limited scope of testimony if required by a duly served subpoena.”
According to the motion, both Hendrick and Penske believe that questions about financial data or the original 2016 charter negotiations are inappropriate.
“Immediately after Plaintiffs filed their Motion for Leave on Wednesday, but before this Court granted the Motion, counsel for the Parties met and conferred with the undersigned counsel,” Ross continued. “The undersigned counsel explained that NASCAR had agreed to limit the scope of trial testimony to the Declarations, and so long as the Plaintiffs limited their questioning to that narrow lane of questioning, a compromise could be reached allowing for the depositions to occur without objection. Plaintiffs refused and made clear that they intended to ask numerous questions of both men regarding their respective race teams’ highly confidential business and financial records, private communications regarding the negotiations leading up to the initial 2016 Charter Agreement, and other highly confidential topics.”
The filing references a June 25, 2025 order that “significantly limits” the financial information non-party teams must provide to NASCAR. That order allowed teams to submit anonymized data through a third party rather than disclosing identifiable financial records.
“Recognizing the limited relevance of non-party teams’ financial information to the parties’ claims and defenses, as well as the risks and burden to the teams, the Court refused to require HMS, PRS, or any other non-party team to produce to NASCAR any financial information other than in an anonymous and untraceable format,” Ross said. “The testimony that Plaintiffs now seek will undermine the entirety of the Court’s decision as related to HMS and PRS and potentially allow the Parties (or the media or general public) to ‘reverse engineer’ the anonymized team information to back out HMS and PRS in an effort to identify the sources of the other team information.”
The motion also argues that the timing of the depositions, so close to both Thanksgiving and the December trial date, places an unreasonable burden on both men. It requests that any testimony be conducted remotely and strictly confined to the previously agreed-upon declarations.
“HMS and PRS compete directly with both NASCAR and Plaintiffs for sponsors and employees, as well as on the track,” the motion said. “Disclosure of HMS’s and PRS’s financial and business information would thus be incredibly burdensome and harmful. Moreover, HMS or PRS have little confidence that a protective order would maintain the confidentiality of any such information – whether in a deposition or ultimately at trial – given the First Amendment and common law rights of access already recognized by this Court.
“Consistent with the Court’s prior ruling, there remains no compelling need in this case for HMS’s and PRS’ confidential financial and business information. Moreover, any question from Plaintiffs (or any other party) to Mr. Hendrick or Mr. Penske about even the confidential, anonymized average per-car data would necessarily require them to disclose some additional information about the data that could permit the parties – and the media – to determine which figures are associated with which team. Such a result would be inconsistent with this Court’s prior Order determining that HMS’s, PRS’s, and the other non-party teams’ rights.”
The court is expected to review the motion ahead of trial proceedings scheduled to begin in December.
