Heather Gibbs is expected to become a 'really important witness' during NASCAR's antitrust trial. On the latest episode of The Teardown podcast, hosts Jeff Gluck and Jodan Bianchi were joined by attorney Shannon McMinimee, who argued that Gibbs didn't deserve to be 'reamed' for her 'impassioned letter' to the France family.During the negotiations for the 2025 charter deal, Gibbs resorted to a personal letter to the France family and asked for permanent charters. The request was met with an expletive-filled rebuke, as revealed during the discovery process. Fans took issue with the revelation, with many criticising the sanctioning body for not caring about the teams.McMinimee believes the hard-nosed stance by NASCAR leadership could end up backfiring."I think Heather Gibbs, who represented JGR in the negotiations....wrote a really impassioned letter, and I would say it's also, but without being over the top, she wrote a very personal but also reasonable letter to the NASCAR leadership after a round of negotiations and apparently, from reading the deposition transcript, that was not well received by Jim France," she said via X/Dirty Mo Media. [0:26 onwards]"And I think that that is the type of thing where Heather Gibbs does doesn't work for either of the two teams that are suing," she added, "she's kind of advanced, a really reasonable sounding position in her letter and is getting reamed by Jim France in a meeting about how dumb she is and or how this is the worst thing that's ever happened in the history of the sport. I think Heather Gibbs has the potential to be a really important witness."The trial officialy began on Monday, December 1. The first day featured jury selection and opening statements by both parties, along with Denny Hamlin's witness testimony.Denny Hamlin 'pleads the fifth' when asked about 2025 NASCAR seasonDenny Hamlin took the stand as the opening witness testimony on Monday. He began with his roots into Cup racing and got teary-eyed over the story. The JGR driver later went into his team financials and how the organisation came about.Amidst the cross questioning, Hamlin was asked about his heartbreaking 2025 NASCAR cup series season."Can I plead the fifth?," he replied (via X/Bob Pockrass)Denny Hamlin's testimony revealed that 23XI Racing pays Joe Gibbs Racing $8 million for their technical alliance, which comes around to $2.66 milion per car. He also stated that he paid for 40 per cent of every charter owned by the team, seeing how he's not allowed to be a majority owner while driving for another team.He further shared that the $35 million Airspeed facility was built to retain their sponsors and avoid losing them to NASCAR.