Story byAssociated PressThu, December 4, 2025 at 8:38 PM UTC·5 min readNASCAR teams went to the sanctioning body in early 2022 asking for an improved revenue model and argued the system at the time was unsustainable, the president of the series testified Thursday in the antitrust case lodged against the top motorsports series in the United States. TRIAL COVERAGE: NASCAR executive returns to the stand in high-stakes antitrust trialAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementSteve O’Donnell, named president of NASCAR earlier this year, was at that March meeting when representatives of four teams asked that the negotiating window on a new charter agreement open early because they were fighting for their financial survival. The negotiating window was not supposed to open until July 2023. O’Donnell testified that in that first meeting, four-time series champion Jeff Gordon, now vice chair of Hendrick Motorsports, asked specifically if the Florida-based France family was “open to a new model?”Ben Kennedy, the great-grandson of NASCAR founder Bill France Sr., told Gordon yes. But O’Donnell testified that NASCAR chairman Jim France was opposed to a new revenue model. AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThus began more than two years of bitter negotiations on a new charter agreement that was finalized in September 2024. The teams had asked in that first meeting for a deal to be reached by July 2022. When the final deal was presented to the teams on the eve of the 2024 playoff opener, they were given a six-hour deadline to sign the charter agreements.