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AVONDALE, Ariz. – NASCAR heads into its championship weekend locked in a federal antitrust lawsuit with NBA Hall of Famer Michael Jordan. Its management has been under scrutiny for months and this week imposed a wave of hefty fines for alleged race manipulation in the final play-off qualifier.

And Truck Series championship contender Ty Majeski was fined $12,500 Tuesday for skipping media obligations in North Carolina so he could vote in person in his home state of Wisconsin.

Other than that? Three champions will be crowned starting Friday at Phoenix Raceway.

But those national series races have become a sideshow to the off-track drama that has engulfed NASCAR in recent months. The four drivers competing in Sunday’s winner-take-all final have put aside the distractions, starting with Tyler Reddick, who reached the final four for the first time in his career and is looking to give Jordan its first championship since Jordan won a became champion. team owner in 2021.

“No, for me and for our group, it’s championship weekend and everything else is not in our focus,” Reddick said Thursday.

A federal judge in North Carolina will rule on a preliminary injunction filed by 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports on Friday – the same day of the Truck Series championship and the first practice for the Cup Series. The two teams declined to sign NASCAR’s take-it-or-leave-it offer for a new revenue-sharing agreement in September and instead sued both NASCAR and chairman Jim France.

Now the teams want to be recognized under the charter agreements as they move forward with a lawsuit accusing NASCAR of being “monopolistic bullies.” The ruling is due on the same day that NASCAR will deliver its annual “State of the Sport” address.

Ryan Blaney, the reigning NASCAR champion who is looking to become the first driver to drive back-to-back since Jimmie Johnson won five straight Cup titles from 2006 through 2010, said the off-track issues have nothing to do with anything at all with him or Team Penske. Blaney and teammate Joey Logano give Ford and Roger Penske a 50% chance at a third straight Cup title.

“To me it feels normal because I’m not part of it,” Blaney said. “I’m part of what I do, the championship, so it’s nice not to be part of the things that happen outside of pure competition. For me it’s a great week, a championship week and we have a chance to do it. For me it’s normal.”

NBC Sports doesn’t think the off-track drama will spill over into its coverage of the three national series races in Phoenix.

“I think we’re here in the race to crown a champion and I can’t imagine us talking about anything other than that,” said analyst Jeff Burton, who said play-by-play announcer Leigh Diffey Reddick probably won’t be declared the winner. winner in the same breath as “but there is a lawsuit!”

But there are other issues at stake.

NASCAR on Tuesday imposed $600,000 in fines and suspended nine members of three different Cup teams for alleged tampering at Martinsville Speedway last weekend. NASCAR ruled that 23XI’s Bubba Wallace helped fellow Toyota driver Christopher Bell by allegedly faking a flat tire. This allowed Bell to punch the wall to avoid Wallace and ride it for momentum to claim the final spot in the playoffs over William Byron.

But that move was declared illegal after Ross Chastain did it in 2022, and it took NASCAR officials nearly 30 minutes after the race on Sunday to decide whether Bell was disqualified or not. He was, and Hendrick Motorsports’ Byron got the last spot.

“It was unbearable,” Byron admitted Thursday. “It took so long. I was honestly numb to it. I just prepared myself for not being there and thought we had done everything we needed to get in.

NASCAR also ruled Tuesday that fellow Chevrolet drivers Chastain and Austin Dillon acted as blockers for Byron on the final few laps to prevent anyone from taking position from him.

Trackhouse Racing and Richard Childress Racing appealed the penalties; 23XI withdrew its initial appeal but denied that it rigged the race for Bell, and RCR withdrew the appeal before the hearing. The appeals panel ruled late Thursday that Trackhouse had broken the rules.

And then there’s the oversight of NASCAR in general.

NASCAR has reversed its damaged vehicle policy for the entirety of the playoffs, which completely backfired during the playoff race at Talladega Superspeedway.

The confusion over the DVP rule started early in the playoffs when Blaney and Josh Berry were involved in incidents on the first lap and although the damage appeared minimal, as the DVP rule had previously been applied, both were ruled out of the race deemed ineligible for towing. to the pit box because they could not continue after contact.

But at Talladega, after a 28-car accident caused the red flag, NASCAR struggled to keep the cleanup under control. Numerous damaged cars were stranded with flat tires and then-playoff candidates Chase Elliott and Briscoe were towed back to their stalls to allow for repairs.

Previous implementation of the rule should have seen the cars excluded from the race because they had four flat tires and could not drive back to the pit lane.

Drivers were outraged by the change in on-duty. NASCAR officials later told the teams that they will use the DVP policy for the remainder of the playoffs as they did at Talladega.

“The DVP policy could permeate the live event,” said NBC analyst Steve Letarte. “So if it clearly affects the track for us, we have to take that into account, that’s our job. But there’s no way I’m going to take an off-track story and connect it to an on-track performance. I think it’s a slap in the face for the team that wins the championship trophy.”