The visit to Mexico City did not end well for everyone in the NASCAR Cup Series. Tab Boyd, the spotter of Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s No. 47 Hyak Motorsports team, faced the worst fallout. Boyd was unimpressed with Mexico from the moment he reached his hotel room. He found the area sketchy, with some reports suggesting he may have been targeted by scammers.
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He took to social media to express his concerns during the weekend and said some things he should not have. His post read, “I’m ready to go home, screw this place, people can talk it up all they want. Can’t even walk out the front door of the hotel without getting hustled and money snatched in less than five minutes. Good area my a—.”
He deleted the post following some pushback online. However, it was too late by then. Hyak Motorsports considered his words to be derogatory and went to the extreme of firing him. The news shocked many, and among them was the former driver, Kenny Wallace. Wallace expressed his disappointment through a video on his YouTube channel.
“Tab is the nicest guy you will ever meet, and they fired him. They fired him from being Ricky Stenhouse’s spotter because he simply said to get him out of Mexico City, he’s had enough of this place. I think the firing was wrong. I think that takes me back to the woke days when people were woke. Very disappointing,” Wallace said.
It was Stenhouse Jr. who confirmed the news about Boyd on SiriusXM NASCAR. He said, “That’s an unfortunate deal. The team let Tab Boyd go this week, and we got Clayton Hughes to come fill in. I’ve never worked with Clayton.” While Boyd has been removed from his position in the Cup Series, he will still play a role on other fronts.
He is still listed as a spotter for Ryan Ellis in the Xfinity Series and Luke Baldwin in the Craftsman Truck Series. Wallace continued to stress that it was a mistake for him to be fired from his main job. He claimed that Boyd’s words weren’t even derogatory and that they were just an expression of frustration. It is rather unfortunate that the owners of Hyak Motorsports don’t see it that way.
Notably, Boyd also worked as a spotter for William Byron and the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports team before joining Stenhouse Jr.’s camp. He won the 2023 Daytona 500 with Stenhouse Jr. Other insiders, including veteran reporter Jeff Gluck, have been coming out and expressing support for Boyd. The common thought is that firing him was too extreme a decision.
