It’s rare to have a NASCAR Cup spotter be fired for a miscommunication that involves their driver getting into a wreck. It’s even more rare when a spotter is fired while the season is still underway.
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But that’s what happened to Kaulig Racing spotter—now former spotter—Joe White. He had just made it to Talladega’s infield on Wednesday, prepared for this weekend’s race, when Kaulig CEO Chris Rice called and told White he was no longer the spotter for Ty Dillon, and even worse, was no longer a member of the Kaulig team.
“I got fired. I got let go from my position,” White told The Athletic. “I’m disappointed but not surprised either, as I knew I wasn’t going back to spot that car next year anyway. [Chris Rice] called and said, ‘How are you doing?’ And I said I was great. And he goes, ‘We’re making a spotter change starting immediately.’”
White was originally supposed to finish out this season as Dillon’s spotter and then was slated to move to one of Kaulig’s Truck Series teams next year. Now, he’s out of both roles and is a free agent. With nothing else left to do in ‘Dega, with no car and driver to spot for Sunday, White booked a flight back to Charlotte to start updating his resume.
How White got fired is one of the oddest situations the sport has seen in a while. It was late in this past Sunday’s race in Las Vegas—32 laps were remaining—and playoff contender William Byron was running second.
Dillon, who was three laps down at the time and off normal pit sequence, had slowed dramatically to reach pit road for a service stop. But due to an alleged miscommunication between White and Byron’s spotter, Dillon pulled in front of the fast-moving Byron (who was planning on staying on track). Byron couldn’t avoid Dillon’s car, plowed into the back, and knocked both cars out of the race.
Where it initially appeared that Byron would have a promising finish, the Hendrick Motorsports driver finished 36th in the race (Dillon was right behind in 37th) and left Las Vegas in fifth place in the standings, 15 points below the provisional cutoff line.
That leaves him in a very tenuous position both in this coming Sunday’s race at Talladega and next Sunday’s penultimate event at Martinsville that will determine the four drivers who will battle for the Cup championship two Sundays from now in Phoenix.
The fallout was a he said, he said situation. Dillon initially claimed he stuck his hand out the window net to indicate to Byron that he was slowing to pit road, but then later recanted. Byron claimed he never saw Dillon’s hand (if there had been one in the first place). Plus, Byron’s crew chief, Rudy Fugle, claimed there was never any communication between White and Byron’s spotter, Brandon Lines.
“I didn’t see any indication that he was pitting,” Byron said, according to The Athletic. “It was probably 12 to 15 laps after we had pitted, so I thought the [pit] cycle was fully over. Nobody said anything to my spotter, from what I know. I had zero idea.”
“Everyone has been wrapping the paint [around the lower groove] really far around the corner, and that’s what I was doing to have a good lap. I was watching him thinking, ‘OK, he missed the bottom a little bit here.’ He just started slowing, and I had no idea what was going on. I’m just devastated. I had no indication. Obviously, I wouldn’t have just driven full speed into the back of him like that.”
Dillon then pointed a finger at White. “Usually, I rely on the spotter to let everybody know, and my spotter said he let [Byron’s] spotter know,” Dillon said.
“I don’t know if it’s a lack of information getting relayed, but that’s a quick amount of time for that to happen. I don’t think I did anything egregious getting on pit road. I hate it for them and hate that it took him out. He was lining up to have a really good day, but I don’t know who that is on or if I could do much different there.”
But White wasn’t having any of it. He said he did his due diligence. “Brandon [Lines] is at the other end of the spotter stand towards Turn 1, so I was like, ‘I got to get to Brandon,’” White told The Athletic.
“So I hustled down there. I didn’t get to him; I didn’t touch him on the shoulder, turn him around, but I got, I would say, four or five feet from him, couple people down, and he turned and looked at me.”
“We made eye contact. I pointed to the bottom, twice, and mouthed the words ‘we’re pitting’—even though I know he can’t hear and he probably can’t read my lips, but I gestured just like I would to any other person that we’re pitting. Obviously, that was misunderstood. He thought we were giving him the bottom, and that was not the case.”
Fugle on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio insisted it was a communication issue between the two spotters, and that Lines did not relay to Byron that Dillon was slowing quickly in front of him. “Our spotter didn’t get clear communication and definitely didn’t get that early enough,” he said.
