The third day of the NASCAR trust trial in federal court in Charlotte, N.C., delivered another round of tense exchanges and high-stakes testimony. After NASCAR executive Scott Prime returned to the stand, it was Front Row Motorsports owner Bob Jenkins who turned up the heat, and he didn’t hold back.
Jenkins, who built his fortune in the restaurant industry before entering NASCAR ownership, adopted a similar approach to the one seen earlier from Denny Hamlin. When pressed by the sanctioning body’s attorney on his team’s operations, financial model, and long-term viability, Jenkins refused to fold.
Instead, he redirected the scrutiny back toward the sanctioning body, calling out the highly touted Next-Gen platform and alleging it has only magnified financial pressure and operational challenges for teams.
‘Taxation Without Representation’ – FRM Boss Goes Scorched-Earth on NASCAR As Trial Tensions Escalate
FRM majority stakeholder Jenkins may not have the star power of Michael Jordan or the media gravity of Hamlin. Still, on Wednesday afternoon, the FRM boss stepped squarely into the spotlight.
He told the courtroom he bleeds money to stay in NASCAR, $6.8 million a year, by his own math, and has never turned a profit as a Cup Series owner. He confessed that he doesn’t even draw a salary. In fact, Jenkins admitted that he only attends a dozen races a season and rarely visits the shop more than a handful of times.
However, when the questions shifted to finances under the Next Gen era, Jenkins went from a calm witness to a man on a mission.
Under the old car model, he said he spent around $1.8 million annually on parts (via Dalton Hopkins). With Next Gen, that number exploded to $4.7 million from 2022 to 2024. To add insult to injury, teams that once repaired components themselves now had to ship them back to the vendor NASCAR selected.
Jenkins explained that it costs him $30,000 a week to refurbish an undamaged car. He made it clear: the charter system wasn’t the villain, the agreement attached to it was. In his view, the system was intended to bring equity and stability to team ownership, but the current contract has turned that promise on its head. And after 22 years in NCS, Jenkins said he has yet to make an operational profit.
Jenkins called the agreement “taxation without representation.”
He stated that his commitment to NASCAR stems from his belief in the sport and his responsibility to the 150 employees who rely on him for their livelihood. He recalled learning of NASCAR’s “take-it-or-leave-it” charter proposal while at dinner with his parents, returning to his phone to find a flood of missed calls and messages.
According to him, the reaction among team owners was emotional and frustrated, with many feeling pressured into signing rather than supporting the deal. In his view, the agreement represented a step backward rather than progress.
NASCAR attorney Lawrence Buterman again took the lead in cross-examination, pressing the owner with the same aggressive line of questioning he used on Hamlin the day before. Jenkins didn’t soften his stance. He argued that while the charter framework introduced in 2016 was promising in theory, the 2025 agreement stripped away its intended benefits.
“It went backward. It was insulting. NASCAR wanted to govern with an iron fist, like taxation without representation,” Jenkins said, calling the document a regression rather than progress. He maintained that the system could still deliver long-term stability and equity, adding, “If we ever do get this right, NASCAR teams will be valuable.”
Despite that optimism, Jenkins said the approval process fractured ownership unity, with 13 teams feeling pressured into signing while two, including his, chose litigation instead. He emphasized that his position wasn’t personal or directed at leadership, saying, “This is not about bashing the France family. They’ve made a lot of great decisions. This charter is not one of them.”
Buterman challenged Jenkins on multiple fronts: his use of non-compete clauses in driver contracts, the team’s low revenue share paid to drivers, unprofitable sponsorship strategies, and accusations that his losses were self-inflicted.
Jenkins pushed back, arguing that comparing team costs to those of other sports was misleading, citing the staggering expenses of the Next Gen model.
Buterman also suggested that Jenkins’ call for a smaller field was self-motivated, aimed at increasing the revenue slice for existing teams. Jenkins countered that exclusivity builds long-term value and that open entries add little competitive merit outside of events like the Daytona 500.
Ultimately, Jenkins’ testimony portrayed a system with potential, but one that he believes has strayed from its intended course. The framework, he argued, could be the foundation of a sustainable future, but only if the balance of power shifts and teams are given genuine representation in the sport they help fund and field.
