Lately, NASCAR has been under serious scrutiny after a wave of internal messages and legal filings lifted the curtain on what many are calling a toxic power structure at the top. Private texts between executives, including Steve Phelps, got unsealed ahead of the big antitrust trial with 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports. In those messages, the bosses called a longtime team owner a “stupid redneck” and joked about taking him out back for a flogging.

The language shocked a lot of people and has teams talking about more lawsuits over straight-up disrespect. But the mess is opening an even bigger conversation, because former driver Terri O’Connell says she got treated the same way, only worse, and for reasons that had nothing to do with racing.

Terri O’Connell says she felt the same disrespect

Terri O’Connell says executives didn’t just ignore her, they went out of their way to silence her.

“BTW, keeping up with all scandalous text and emails coming from NASCAR executives toward drivers and car owners… they did the same to me only worse even threatening journalists careers if they supported me.

“Plus they called and had a TV show killed and media interviews to promote my memoir! I did nothing to provoke them, and was one of their VIP’s!”

She claimed that they ultimately did all these actions to make it clear she wasn’t welcome.

She had been treated like a VIP in the sport before, but suddenly doors slammed shut. O’Connell believes the hostility came from who she is more than anything she did on the track.

Now that leaked texts are showing the same kind of ugly talk aimed at respected team owners, her story suddenly feels less like ancient history and more like part of the same pattern.

The current lawsuit is all about power, money, and treating people unfairly. If O’Connell’s experience lines up with what’s coming out in court, it paints a picture of a culture that picks on anyone who doesn’t fit the mold, whether they own a team or drive the car.

The flood of messages and filings has turned private grudges into public problems, and long-quiet voices like Terri O’Connell are finally getting heard in a way they never did before.

While the lawsuit keeps uncovering bad behavior at the top, another old voice is getting new attention, too. Back in 2008, Bill Elliott looked around and saw the same handful of teams winning everything: Hendrick, Gibbs, Childress, Roush. He didn’t like it then, and he doesn’t like it now.

Bill Elliott’s old warning about big teams

“You look at the win column, and they all come from those kinds of teams,” he said at the time. “You may have a day in the sun once or twice, but year in and year out they’re going to kick your butt. They’ve got the army.”

He worried smaller teams would burn their people out trying to keep up, and he missed the days when crew chiefs could actually out-smart the big budgets instead of just out-spend them.

NASCAR brought in the Next Gen car in 2022, promising a more level field with standardized parts. For a minute, Trackhouse looked like the new kid who could play with the giants. Then the usual suspects figured the car out first and pulled away again. Same story, newer paint.

Steve O’Donnell says the league is looking at letting teams tweak a few more things to bring back creativity. That sounds good on paper, but Elliott’s warning still hangs in the air: open the rule book and the teams with the deepest pockets will just hire more engineers and develop faster. The rich get richer, the little guys get tired, and the gap never really closes.

From executives trash-talking owners in private texts to a former driver saying she got the same hate for being different, to Bill Elliott calling the competitive balance problem almost twenty years ago, the picture coming together isn’t pretty.

NASCAR is facing lawsuits, leaks, and old ghosts all at once, and a lot of people are wondering if the sport can fix what’s broken before more damage shows up on the track and in the headlines.