NASCAR World Slams “Worst Jordan Scheme”, Gives Thumbs Up to Bubba Wallace’s Chicago Experiment

Rahul Ahluwalia | 06/07/2024
NASCAR world slams "Worst Jordan Scheme", gives Thumbs up to Bubba Wallace's Chicago Experiment

NASCAR’s return to Chicago this weekend solidifies the American stock car racing fraternity’s beliefs in the future of street courses in the sport and bodes well for one of the teams competing at the highest level. 23XI Racing, co-owned by legendary basketball player Michael Jordan will be seeing one of its entries pay tribute to the former Chicago Bulls’ star’s affinity with ‘The Windy City’.

Jordan’s tenure of playing with the team during his active NBA days earned the now-cultural icon six championships and an unending amount of support from the area. Tyler Reddick’s #45 Toyota Camry this Sunday will be paying tribute to the same legacy with a special paint scheme.

However, fans did not seem to relish the new look of the #45 as much as they did other paint schemes in the past.

Others also reacted to the same citing the “laziness” of the design and wrote on social media, “Of all the Jordan schemes this seems the laziest.”

Despite the lukewarm reception for the new colors of the #45 Toyota, driver Tyler Reddick seemed upbeat previewing his race ahead this Sunday and told NewsNation, “It just adds to the pressure but that’s been good for us normally. It just seems like when we run these wonderful Jordan brand schemes we rise to the moment and it really brings some good performance out of our cars.”

The 2024 Grant Park 165 will be seen going live from the streets of Downtown, Chicago this Sunday at 4:30 pm ET.

Bubba Wallace’s one-off paint scheme well received ahead of NASCAR’s return to Chicago

In stark comparison to his teammate, the driver and crew behind the #23 Toyota Camry fielded by 23XI Racing was greeted with much praise for their new colors in Windy City. The unique paint scheme combined two varied aspects of culture from around the world by mixing a sponsorship from the American fast food chain Mcdonalds with the Japanese anime Jujutsu Kaizen.

Fans seemed to love what the creative minds behind the scheme came up with and reacted to the same.

“It’s so beautiful.” said one fan, while another appreciated the unique collaboration and wrote, “As a fan of the anime and NASCAR I love to see my two worlds collide.”

It remains to be seen how well the team manages to perform at an event which is very much an outlier on the season calendar.

Post Edited By: Srijan Mandal
Bubba Wallace Chicago Street Race Michael Jordan Tyler Reddick

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Rahul Ahluwalia

Rahul Ahluwalia is a NASCAR Content Strategist and Journalist at The SportsRush. Hailing from a Journalism and Mass Communication background, Rahul's love for automobiles transformed into his passion for all things racing. With over 1200+ articles under his belt covering a mixture of NASCAR and F1, he has realized his calling in the world of motorsports with actual first hand experience behind the wheel to back it up. He has competed in several autocross events as well as rallycross-style competitions to hone his skills behind the wheel and better understand the mindset of a racecar driver, allowing him to further improve his writing as well. He also has an editorial background with respect to racing and has eye for stories which otherwise go unnoticed. Rahul is also an avid sim racer indulging in various disciplines such as rallying and oval racing during his free time. Having begun his motorsports journey at the start of 2020, he turned his passion into his work allowing him to delve deeper into the ever evolving and world of cars and motorsports. Apart from racing, Rahul also has sound technical knowledge of the automotive industry and automobiles in general. Having grown up playing video games such as Need for Speed, Forza Motorsport and Gran Turismo, it is easy to see where the love for racing and machines inculcated in the first place.

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