AVONDALE, Ariz. – NASCAR heads into its championship weekend caught in a federal antitrust lawsuit with NBA Hall of Famer Michael Jordan. His officiating has been under scrutiny for months, and this week he issued a wave of hefty fines for alleged racial tampering in the final playoff qualifying game.

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

Apart from 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. All four drivers competing in Sunday’s winner-take-all finale have put distractions aside, starting with Tyler Reddick, who made the final four for the first time in his career and is trying to give Jordan his first championship since Jordan became the team’s owner in 2021.

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

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

Now the teams want to be recognized under the charter agreements as they move forward with a lawsuit accusing NASCAR of being “monopoly bullies.” The ruling is scheduled to be announced on the same day NASCAR is scheduled to give its annual “State of the Sports” address.

Ryan Blaney, the reigning NASCAR champion seeking to become the first driver to do so consecutively since Jimmie Johnson won five straight Cup titles from 2006 to 2010, said the off-track issues have nothing to do with him or the Team Penske. Blaney and teammate Joey Logano give Ford and Roger Penske a 50% chance of winning a third consecutive Cup title.

“To me it’s normal because I’m not a part of any of that,” Blaney said. “I’m part of what I’m doing, the championship, so it’s nice not to be part of anything that happens outside of pure competition. For me, it’s a big week, a championship week and we have a chance to do it. For me it is normal.”

NBC Sports does not believe the off-track drama will extend to coverage of the three national series races in Phoenix.

“I think during the race we’re here to crown a champion and I can’t imagine us talking about anything other than that,” said analyst Jeff Burton, who said it’s unlikely broadcaster Leigh Diffey will declare Reddick the winner. winner at the same time as “but there is a demand!”

But there are other pending issues.

On Tuesday, NASCAR fined $600,000 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. That allowed Bell to hit the wall to avoid Wallace and use the momentum to claim the final playoff spot over William Byron.

But that move was ruled illegal after Ross Chastain made it in 2022, and it took nearly 30 minutes after Sunday’s race for NASCAR officials to decide whether Bell was disqualified or not. It was, and Hendrick Motorsports’ Byron took last place.

“It was unbearable,” Byron admitted Thursday. “It was so long. Honestly, I was numb to it. “I was just preparing to not be there and thinking we had done everything necessary to get in.”

NASCAR also ruled Tuesday that fellow Chevrolet drivers Chastain and Austin Dillon acted as Byron’s blockers during the final laps to prevent anyone from taking his position.

Trackhouse Racing and Richard Childress Racing appealed the sanctions; 23XI withdrew its initial appeal although it denied rigging the race for Bell, and RCR withdrew the appeal before the hearing. The appeals panel ruled Thursday night that Trackhouse violated the rules.

And then there’s the scrutiny over NASCAR officiating in general.

NASCAR throughout the playoffs has changed its damaged vehicle policy, which was completely botched during the playoff race at Talladega Superspeedway.

Confusion over the DVP rule began early in the playoffs when Blaney and Josh Berry had incidents in the first round and, although the damage seemed minimal, the way the DVP rule had previously been applied, both were considered out of the race and not eligible to be towed. to the pit stall because they could not continue after contact.

But at Talladega, after a 28-car crash brought out the red flag, NASCAR had trouble controlling the cleanup. Numerous damaged cars were stranded with flat tires and then-playoff contenders Chase Elliott and Briscoe were towed back to their positions to allow for repairs.

Under the previous implementation of the rule, the cars should have been excluded from the race because they had four flat tires and could not return to the pits.

The drivers were outraged by the change of referee. NASCAR officials then told teams they will operate the DVP policy the rest of the playoffs the same way they did at Talladega.

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