‘It’s on them.’ Engineer says NASCAR gave teams ‘every opportunity’ to cut costs

The teams accusing NASCAR of being an unlawful monopoly have testified a lot over the last eight days that life in the Cup Series has become increasingly and unbearably expensive and that they have no option but to pay up.

On Wednesday, one of the lead engineers at NASCAR had a one-word response to such a claim:

“Bewilderment.”

That was the on-the-record reaction from John Probst, the chief racing development officer at NASCAR and the defense counsel’s first witness after the plaintiffs — 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports — rested their case Wednesday morning in U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina in uptown Charlotte.

Probst, an engineer by trade and his own admission, was almost exclusively asked about his role in developing the Next Gen car — the stock car used by the NASCAR Cup Series — and why NASCAR decided to develop and institute it.

There were several reasons, Probst went on to say. But the one that kept cropping up, and is most relevant to the antitrust trial, is that the car was meant to — and theoretically is — saving teams money.

“It’s competition that drives cost more so than rules do,” Probst said. He added, “Our last-placed teams have regional airplanes. … It’s on the teams if they want fancy war rooms. That’s their business.”

He added: “We give them every opportunity (to cut costs). … It’s on them.”

Probst was asked so much about the Next Gen car and its impact on team finances because of how relevant it is to the teams’ case. Specifically, the plaintiffs are asserting that NASCAR’s model of business is unfair — and it’s one that can’t be changed because it uses anti-competitive acts to weaken teams and strengthen itself.

The teams have asserted over the past eight days that NASCAR is a monopoly in several ways. One of the ways is how it “locks up” the venues — the racetracks — with exclusivity agreements to prevent another worthy premier stock car racing competitor from entering the marketplace. More examples are related to the charter negotiations and how, as at least one team owner said, NASCAR “had us over a barrel” when the deadline arrived to sign the agreement in September 2024.

But another primary point the teams made is that NASCAR forced teams to purchase cars and parts from NASCAR-approved suppliers, and that teams actually saw costs rise when required to put out the Next Gen car on the track.

NASCAR set out to debunk all these points with Probst on the stand.

Probst began developing the Next Gen car in 2019. The name “Next Gen” refers to the Generation 7 car, representing the seventh car in NASCAR’s nearly 80-year history. It was an ambitious project for NASCAR: Never before had the series required its teams to purchase their chassis, composite bodies and other parts of the car by the same supplier. The car debuted in 2022. Probst told the nine-member jury that NASCAR is continuing to invest in the car and that it has invested $14 million already into the endeavor; he also added that 30 of the 36 chartered cars approved the idea of Next Gen prior to its use in competition and confirmed NASCAR does not make money from parts sold to its teams.

The idea for NASCAR, as Probst testified, was that this would help keep costs down. Not only would the parts be durable, but the constant hamster wheel of teams testing the parts, improving upon them, making some parts obsolete, investing in new ones, etc., would be more or less eliminated.

Teams disagree with the result. Front Row Motorsports Bob Jenkins pointed out that teams themselves can’t fix the parts — that any broken part must be sent back to NASCAR’s approved supplier and must be paid to be fixed. Probst argued back that this actually saves costs for the teams; after all, if teams could fix parts themselves, then they might spend millions adjusting the parts they’re given to find advantages instead of racing with them.

Probst hinted at this a lot in his testimony — that NASCAR did what it could to “protect” teams from themselves and their propensity to let their spending habits skyrocket.

Probst also laid out several other economic positives about the car:

• The parity the new car ushered in made companies more willing to go into sponsorship agreements with all teams — not just the top ones.
• It also compelled other owners into the Cup Series, specifically Trackhouse Racing owner Justin Marks.
• It also brought in another original equipment manufacturer (OEM) into the sport; Ram will join the Craftsman Truck Series as early as 2026.
• And because NASCAR had the data — it was the first time it could log all the car purchases teams were making, after all — NASCAR found that the teams who spent the most weren’t always the most successful, an important message sent to the garage: There’s more to winning in this sport than money.

Plaintiffs attorney Jeffrey Kessler, in cross-examination of Probst, not only pushed back on a few of Probst’s economic points but also focused on the fact that his testimony didn’t address the fact that NASCAR has yet to allow the Next Gen car to be raced in other stock car racing series considering it owns the car’s intellectual property.

Probst, when probed on this subject: “No one has ever asked.”

And what would happen if a team did, in fact, ask?

“I think we’d probably discuss it.”

NASCAR CEO Jim France concludes his testimony

NASCAR CEO and board chairman Jim France was a bit more talkative under cross-examination Wednesday. His most memorable commentary was that he at long last gave an explanation for his stance against the permanent, or “evergreen,” charters the teams lobbied so hard for.

“I don’t know how you can set anything in this changing world as permanent,” France said. “There are more than just teams that are involved in this sport.”

He alluded to the first 45 years of NASCAR, when the series used to pay the drivers and not the teams: “Had we had a permanent agreement with the drivers, we wouldn’t have been able to adjust.”

The jury is just about fluent in NASCAR’s charter agreement by now, the one in which teams own “charters” — or franchises — an asset that they can own and sell as they desire. The teams wanted these charters to be “permanent” — a distinction that makes it so their asset appreciates or depreciates with the sport over time, and so that their asset can’t be taken away, even if, say, they didn’t want to sign on to an agreement put forth by the sanctioning body.

France revealed advice from his father and founder of the series, Bill Sr., when relaying why he opted against permanent charters, he said.

“We’re a sport of thousands of contracts,” France said. “I would be uncomfortable (doing something that) I don’t have total sight-line to.”

Other notes from Day 8 of NASCAR trial

—The four witnesses who testified Wednesday: France, then Probst, then NASCAR chief financial officer Greg Motto, then expert economic professor Mark Zmijewski.

—Zmijewski, or “Professor Z” as he goes by in his workplace, testified Wednesday and argued that the calculations made earlier this week by Edward Snyder — Professor Z’s close friend and colleague — were faulty. In other words, teams should not be awarded anywhere near the $367 million in damages they’re seeking if they prevail in the case. His argument required a long lecture, one that concluded that Formula One teams weren’t a good benchmark to use because F1 team revenues are so much higher than NASCAR team revenues. The teams, upon an abbreviated cross-examination, said that NASCAR executives were the ones who called F1 a good comparison in previous correspondence.

—Plaintiff attorneys still want information on how Richard Childress’s financial information was brought to light in court on Tuesday, as Childress indicated he’d signed a non-disclosure agreement. District Judge Kenneth Bell told the lawyers that if the issue wasn’t resolved by Thursday morning he will issue orders — something he said he doesn’t want to do.

—Judge Bell gave the jury a timeline update before departing Wednesday, saying he has been informed by counsel that the defense should be through with their witness list by the end of the day Friday. That doesn’t mean the end of the trial will come Friday; rebuttal, closing arguments, jury instructions and deliberations will come next week.