Steve Phelps, who became NASCAR’s first commissioner in March 2025 after serving as its president since 2018, will step down ahead of the 2026 season. And there aren’t any plans to line up a suitable replacement anytime soon.
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Phelps’ role and responsibilities will instead be shared by other executives. The core cause of his resignation is the inflammatory text messages that came out during the antitrust lawsuit proceedings between NASCAR and 23XI Racing-Front Row Motorsports.
Phelps had spoken badly about Richard Childress, one of the icons of the sport, and insulted him in those messages that came out. It put NASCAR’s image into disrepute. Former driver Kenny Wallace spoke about Phelps’ exit in a recent video posted to his YouTube channel, detailing how he might have been NASCAR’s scapegoat to fix everything wrong.
Wallace pointed out the statement that Bass Pro Shops CEO Johnny Morris made after the messages came to light. Morris, a longtime friend of Childress and a reputed sponsor in NASCAR, didn’t sound very happy about it.
“…Such blatant disrespect would probably not sit well with the fans – such a commissioner most likely wouldn’t, or shouldn’t keep his or her job for very long,” Morris had written in the statement.
This is where Wallace sees the silver lining. He emphasized that Phelps is gone now because NASCAR doesn’t want to antagonize the most powerful and wealthy people in the industry. Bass Pro Shops has been a long-time supporter of NASCAR, sponsoring Richard Childress Racing since 1998. Firing Phelps was the only way to fix the image issue.
“So, NASCAR has an image issue. I don’t think Steve Phelps could have walked around the pit area. Could you imagine Steve Phelps the first week at Daytona? How could he have walked around the garage area?” Wallace added.
It was indeed an awkward situation for not just Phelps, but also for the drivers and crew members. In that light, perhaps, his exit is for the good.
Wallace highlighted that the good work Phelps did with NASCAR must not go unappreciated because of the one bad thing he did. Again, his resignation was only a plausible outcome of all the fiasco that went down over the past couple of years. Fresh beginnings await the sport with the 2026 season on the horizon.
