Jennifer Jo Cobb Ordered to Pay $850,002 in North Carolina Affair Lawsuit
- 🔑 A Davidson County, North Carolina jury ordered NASCAR Truck Series driver and team owner Jennifer Jo Cobb to pay $850,002 to Tracey Hughes on September 24, 2026, after finding Cobb liable on both claims in a civil lawsuit over the end of Hughes’s marriage.
- The award breaks down as $800,000 for criminal conversation and $50,000 for alienation of affection, plus $1 in punitive damages on each of the two claims — old civil torts that North Carolina is one of the few states still allowing plaintiffs to bring.
- Hughes accused Cobb of having an affair with her then-husband, Clayton Hughes, Cobb’s longtime NASCAR spotter, describing calls, texts and in-person meetings before the couple’s January 2021 separation. Cobb has denied having an affair or otherwise wronging the marriage.
- The case took more than two years to reach trial: filed in January 2024, a judge denied Cobb’s dismissal and constitutional-challenge motions in December 2024, mediation failed in January 2025, and the trial ran September 21–24, 2026 in Lexington, North Carolina.
- As of early October 2026 this is a jury verdict, not a final judgment — Cobb has said ‘This isn’t over. The judgment has not been entered,’ signaling likely post-trial motions or an appeal before the case is actually closed.
- This is a civil-court report about a completed jury trial, not a prediction about any future outcome, and no betting odds, point spreads, or win-probability models of any kind appear anywhere on this page or were used in researching it.
A Davidson County, North Carolina jury ordered NASCAR Truck Series driver and team owner Jennifer Jo Cobb to pay $850,002 to Tracey Hughes on September 24, 2026, finding Cobb liable on every claim in a civil “heart balm” lawsuit over the breakup of Hughes’s marriage. The verdict ended a three-day trial, but not the case itself — Cobb says she isn’t finished fighting it, and as of this writing no formal judgment had yet been entered.
What did the jury decide in the Jennifer Jo Cobb case?
The Davidson County Superior Court jury sided with Tracey Hughes on both of her claims against Cobb, ordering a combined $850,002 in damages. The award breaks down into $800,000 for criminal conversation and $50,000 for alienation of affection — two old civil torts that North Carolina still allows — plus $1 in punitive damages on each claim.
| Claim | Amount |
|---|---|
| Criminal conversation | $800,000 |
| Alienation of affection | $50,000 |
| Punitive (both claims) | $2 |
| Total | $850,002 |
The jury reached its verdict on September 24, 2026, after a three-day trial at the Davidson County Courthouse in Lexington, North Carolina.
What was the lawsuit actually about?
Tracey Hughes accused Cobb of having an affair with her then-husband, Clayton Hughes, who worked for years as Cobb’s NASCAR spotter, and of helping end their marriage. Hughes and Clayton Hughes married in 2003 and separated in January 2021. Her complaint described phone calls, text messages and in-person meetings between Cobb and her husband in the months before the separation, including while traveling for races. North Carolina is one of a small number of states that still recognizes alienation of affection and criminal conversation as civil claims, which is what let Hughes sue Cobb directly over the marriage’s collapse rather than suing her husband. Cobb has denied having an affair or otherwise wronging the Hughes marriage.
How did the case get to trial?
Hughes filed suit in Davidson County Superior Court on January 5, 2024, about three years after the couple separated — inside North Carolina’s three-year filing window for these claims. Cobb pushed back that April, asking the court to dismiss the case and to send a separate challenge — that the two torts are unconstitutional — to a three-judge panel in Wake County. Superior Court Judge Eric Morgan denied both requests in December 2024. Court-ordered mediation followed in January 2025 and ended in an impasse. The trial was rescheduled more than once before it finally opened on September 21, 2026.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| Jan 2021 | Hughes marriage separates |
| Jan 2024 | Lawsuit filed |
| Dec 2024 | Motions denied |
| Jan 2025 | Mediation fails |
| Sep 21–24, 2026 | Trial held, verdict returned |
Is the $850,002 verdict final, or can Cobb appeal?
No — as of early October 2026, this is a jury verdict, not a final, unappealable judgment, and Cobb has signaled she plans to keep fighting it. Speaking afterward, quoted by a North Carolina newspaper, Cobb said: “This isn’t over. The judgment has not been entered.” Under standard civil procedure, either side can still file post-trial motions before a formal judgment is entered, and only after that does an appeal clock typically start. There is no public record yet of a judgment being entered or an appeal being filed, so the $850,002 figure should be read as what a jury ordered on September 24, 2026 — not as money that has already changed hands.
Is Jennifer Jo Cobb still racing in NASCAR?
Not currently — Cobb has not competed in a NASCAR national-series race since 2024. She made her Truck Series debut in 2008 and went on to become the only woman to own and drive for her own full-time team, Jennifer Jo Cobb Racing’s No. 10 truck. She scaled the operation back to a part-time schedule in 2022, did not enter a single Truck Series race in 2025, and there is no indication she has entered one in 2026 either. That gap is why most coverage of this lawsuit calls her a former NASCAR driver, even though she and her team remain part of the sport as an ownership operation.
Is this connected to any other legal case involving the people in it?
Yes — a separate, already-concluded criminal case involves two of the same people. Cobb’s husband, former crew chief Eddie Troconis (the two married in 2015 and were separated at the time), was convicted of second-degree assault in December 2022 after attacking Clayton Hughes at a race weekend in October 2021, by which point Hughes and Cobb had reportedly begun a relationship. That case was prosecuted separately in Alabama and played no part in the North Carolina civil trial; it’s noted here only because it independently corroborates the timeline of when Cobb and Clayton Hughes became involved.
What happens next?
The $850,002 figure is what a Davidson County jury ordered on September 24, 2026 — the next steps are judgment entry, any post-trial motions, and a possible appeal, none of which had played out publicly as of this writing. We’ll revisit this page once the judgment is formally entered or Cobb’s next move becomes public. For another recent look at how NASCAR team business gets decided off the track, see our report on Brad Keselowski’s departure from RFK Racing .
How we verified this
The verdict amount and its breakdown were checked against multiple independent outlet types reporting the same Davidson County Superior Court jury decision — wire-style national coverage, a North Carolina broadcast affiliate citing the local paper of record, and NASCAR-specific trade coverage all gave the identical $850,002 figure ($800,000 criminal conversation, $50,000 alienation of affection, $1 punitive damages on each claim), so that number is treated as settled.
Trial dates and the courthouse location (Davidson County Courthouse, Lexington, NC, September 21–24, 2026) came from NASCAR trade coverage that cited a North Carolina broadcast station’s reporting, and matched the verdict date (September 24) reported independently elsewhere.
Cobb’s marriage-length description was a genuine cross-outlet conflict. Some coverage describes a “17-year marriage,” while more detailed reporting gives 2003 as the marriage year and January 2021 as the separation date. Rather than pick a number, this page states the marriage and separation years directly and leaves the reader to do the arithmetic, since the underlying dates were consistent even where the rounded year-count was not.
Cobb’s current NASCAR status was re-checked rather than assumed. Her own team’s reference page shows she has not entered a Truck Series race since 2024 and sat out the 2025 season entirely, with no 2026 entries found in current searches — which is why this page describes her as not currently racing rather than flatly calling her retired or still active.
A secondary detail — that Cobb’s husband, Eddie Troconis, was criminally convicted of assaulting Clayton Hughes in 2022 — was confirmed against a second, independent source (local newspaper coverage of the Alabama criminal case) before being included, satisfying this page’s own bar for a claim involving a named private individual’s criminal record. It is presented only as background corroborating the relationship timeline, not as part of the North Carolina civil case.
Whether judgment has since been formally entered, or whether Cobb has filed an appeal, was still unresolved as of publication. No source found reports either development; the page states plainly that the $850,002 figure is a jury verdict, not a collected or unappealable judgment.
No betting odds, spreads, or win-probability models appear anywhere on this page.