23XI Racing, co-owned by Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin, along with Front Row Motorsports, has been in a full-blown fight with NASCAR over the way charters work. They say the rules are unfair and give NASCAR too much power. Recently, the teams won a temporary injunction to keep racing as chartered teams in 2025. That got overturned on appeal, though, and now NASCAR is hitting back with its own lawsuit, calling the teams troublemakers trying to break the system. Things just got a whole lot spicier.

NASCAR wants Jordan and Hamlin out of the courtroom

NASCAR has asked the judge to keep Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin from sitting in the courtroom while other people testify. The reason is simple. They are both expected to be witnesses themselves, and NASCAR says their star power could accidentally sway what others say on the stand.

Judge Kenneth Bell’s order said, “At the pretrial hearing, Defendants asked the Court to exclude two of 23XI Racings’ three owners from the courtroom pursuant to FRE Rule 615. The Court is continuing to consider that request.”

Bell is still thinking it over. He told both sides to turn in short arguments by noon on November 25, 2025, explaining why Jordan and Hamlin should or should not be allowed to listen in before it is their turn to talk. NASCAR is using a normal courtroom rule that lets judges clear the room of witnesses, so nobody hears answers ahead of time.

It is not hard to see why NASCAR is worried. Michael Jordan grew up in North Carolina, went to college there, and is basically treated like local royalty. Having him sitting front row could make some witnesses nervous or even change how a jury feels without anyone saying a word. Denny Hamlin is a top driver and co-owner, so his presence carries weight, too. NASCAR just wants a level playing field in a trial that already feels anything but level.

This is the same lawsuit where Jordan and Hamlin say NASCAR runs the sport like a monopoly and forces teams into bad deals. NASCAR fired back by calling them an illegal cartel. Everything rides on charters, those valuable guarantees that lock a team into every race and a share of the money.

Lose the case, and 23XI could be fighting for survival. With stakes that high and personalities this big, the courtroom is turning into its own kind of pressure cooker, and Denny Hamlin already has plenty on his mind after Phoenix.

Hamlin admits a title might have sent him walking

Denny Hamlin just quietly opened the door to an early NASCAR retirement. After a late caution at Phoenix cost him the 2025 championship when he was pulling away, a lot of people wondered if Hamlin might do a Carl Edwards and just walk away. Edwards got robbed of the 2016 title the same way and never came back.

Turns out Hamlin was thinking the opposite. He said on his podcast that if he had won that race and the championship, he would have begged Joe Gibbs to let him quit right then and there. Winning it all might have been his perfect goodbye.

Hamlin is still coming back for 2026 and is signed through 2027 with Joe Gibbs Racing. He is 45 now, the oldest full-time driver in Cup, and already has a Hall of Fame career. But he made it clear a championship would feel like the top of the mountain.

If he gets that title in 2026, there is a real chance he hangs up the helmet for good in 2027, maybe just running a few races here and there, possibly even in a car for the 23XI team he co-owns with Jordan.

All that courtroom stress on top of racing stress? You can understand why Hamlin has one eye on the exit door that only a championship trophy would open.