Last year, when asked whether he’d ever consider racing for his own team, 23XI Racing — Denny Hamlin made his stance clear. While he acknowledged the team’s strong potential and the sponsor appeal brought by Michael Jordan’s involvement, Hamlin expressed a firm desire to finish his career with Joe Gibbs Racing.
Advertisement
His reasoning centered on JGR’s superior equipment and its pit crew performance. However, the script surrounding 23XI Racing appears to have flipped now. Tyler Reddick’s performance last season is the biggest proof of the same.
He wrapped up the year fourth in the overall standings, and this season, he’s kept the momentum rolling. With an average finish of 11.75, three top-five results in the opening eight races, and a fifth-place spot in the standings, Reddick has firmly planted 23XI among the top-tier contenders.
But perhaps the most surprising development has come from Bubba Wallace. The driver of the #23 machine has found his groove, consistently running at the sharp end of the field. Wallace finished third at both Homestead and Martinsville and picked up another top-10 at Atlanta.
He also won Duel 1, the qualifying race of the Daytona 500 this year. Now sitting eighth in the standings with an average finish of 17.75, Wallace has turned heads and silenced doubters.
But the recent performances wouldn’t have been possible without the important role played by 23XI Racing’s pit crew. Speaking on the investment made in that department, Denny Hamlin acknowledged,
“We have definitely put a lot of effort into it [pit crews]. Not just money, but effort. Whether that be recruiting people, getting to trust us that we have a process.” He further reflected on the team’s evolution, quoting co-owner Michael Jordan:
“Michael has said for a long time – we are going to be able to sell the dream for so long. We are going to have to live it at some point. You have to be the dream. We can’t talk about how great we can be or gonna be. You have to be great. You can’t just talk about it. We really feel like we are taking the next step, and the pit crew is taking that next step to be better as an organization.”
Hamlin added that the organization genuinely feels it’s turning the corner, with the pit crew now stepping up to the plate and helping the team raise the bar.
The 23XI racing co-owner also conceded that in the early stages, while the team focused on building fast cars, they inadvertently fell short in supporting their drivers where it counted most, concerning other procedures, such as pit stops.
That shortcoming, he noted, was part and parcel of the growing pains every new team faces. From the outset, they understood this journey would require time and patience, and credit goes to the drivers for sticking it out.
In the past, despite showing flashes of speed, 23XI’s efforts were often undercut by shortcomings in pit execution and equipment. But now that those gaps have been closed, both Bubba Wallace and Tyler Reddick are beginning to reap the rewards on track.
Bubba Wallace shares his take on the performance of the #23 pit crew of late
As Bubba Wallace is getting ready for the upcoming short-track challenge at Bristol Motor Speedway, he recently shed light on the strides his pit crew has made — and how those gains have translated on race day.
He emphasized that his crew has been firing on all cylinders. While pit crew members are often overlooked when things go right and are the first to be called out when things go south, Wallace made it a point to acknowledge their commitment, saying:
“They know that the work they’re putting in is finally paying off, and it’s been really cool to see, especially with our team fairly new. We have some veterans in our group that are putting it all together… It’s been just really, really cool to see and obviously awesome to be able to be in those situations where they deliver in spots where we need them to.”
However, the #23 driver didn’t shy away from calling a spade a spade. He admitted that the pit crews supporting the other two cars [#45 and #35] at 23XI Racing still have ground to cover before meeting the team’s expectations.
