NASCAR president Steve O'Donnell changes tune on Jim France reaction to Heather Gibbs charter letter

NASCAR president Steve O’Donnell took the stand Thursday at the Western District of North Carolina courthouse as part of Day 4 of the 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports versus NASCAR antitrust lawsuit trial. O’Donnell was called to the stand as an adverse witness by the plaintiffs’ lead attorney Jeffrey Kessler.

Kessler questioned O’Donnell on a number of topics, one being the Heather Gibbs letter to NASCAR. Gibbs, co-owner of Joe Gibbs Racing, sent a lengthy letter in May 2024 to NASCAR leadership after meeting with them, expressing her view of why teams should get permanent charters.

The letter was first revealed to the public Oct. 30. Gibbs closed the letter with the following:

“When all the stakes are on the table, teams need to know their worth is valued and secure,” Gibbs wrote. “NASCAR has the guarantee that teams are ‘in it’ for the long run, and teams have assurance from the sanctioning body that their charters are secure. If there was anything to decide to move the team forward it will be trust in them, the owners, the legends and leaders of your sport with a permanent spot in your history book.”

NASCAR’s Steve O’Donnell faces tough line of questioning from Jeffrey Kessler

O’Donnell wrote in the internal message thread at the time that he was observing NASCAR CEO Jim France read the letter, who was swearing every other sentence while reading it. Kessler read sections of the letter before asking O’Donnell what about the letter made France mad enough to begin swearing. According to NASCAR reporter Toby Christie, O’Donnell responded, “I wrote that, but he didn’t swear.” O’Donnell stated it was a figure of speech.

Kessler didn’t stop there. He asked O’Donnell, as Christie wrote, “what specifically France was doing or saying that let on that he was mad while reading the letter aloud and did so to the extent that O’Donnell felt compelled to use ‘swearing’ as the way to describe the behavior.” O’Donnell answered, “I don’t know.” That prompted this follow-up from Kessler: “If you can’t remember, how do you know that he was not swearing?”

The questioning of O’Donnell continued. At one point during the examination, O’Donnell asked an impassioned Kessler to stop yelling. Kessler wrapped up and NASCAR’s legal team began its line of questioning of O’Donnell, which will continue Friday when the court resumes at 9 p.m. ET.