DARLINGTON, S.C. — Hands on his hips, Michael Jordan looked like a man contemplating what to think amid a thrilling NASCAR Cup Series regular-season finale where both the race winner and regular-season championship came down to the wire. Was he happy or sad? It was hard to decipher.
On one hand, he had every reason to be ecstatic. Tyler Reddick gutted through a stomach bug to deliver 23XI Racing, the team Jordan co-owns, the regular-season title.
On the other hand, Bubba Wallace, Reddick’s teammate, had fallen painstakingly short of qualifying for the playoffs, missing by 27 points.
Such was the juxtaposition of emotions for Jordan and 23XI following Sunday night’s Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway. At the same time as Jordan, Reddick and others rejoiced, further down pit road, Wallace had to reconcile with the disappointment that he wouldn’t be joining his teammate in the playoffs.
So as Jordan began walking down pit road from the very first pit stall, it was a mystery where he was headed. Was he first seeking out Reddick and the No. 45 team to congratulate them or Wallace and the No. 23 team to console them?
Jordan ended up in the makeshift victory lane NASCAR had set up for its regular-season champion. There, the six-time NBA champion whose name is synonymous with greatness celebrated everything 23XI had done this year. He gleefully pulled out his phone to take photos of the team as they posed with the trophy, offering high-fives and hugs to everyone who came in contact with him.
“We’re coming. We’re coming,” Jordan said. “We got the right team. These guys busted their ass all season. … We just got to keep striving. Believe me, I’m not satisfied.”
One proud owner.@TylerReddick | @23XIRacing pic.twitter.com/1T40jyKRHG
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) September 2, 2024
Jordan is right to feel bullish.
Here was 23XI in just its fourth year of existence doing something that teams of this ilk aren’t supposed to. Unlike Hendrick Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing and Team Penske — the “Big Three” teams in the garage that have been around for 30-plus years and have a seemingly infinite number of resources at their disposal — 23XI operates much differently. And in turn, it’s become a model for other teams.
“I just wanted a team that could compete for a championship,” 23XI co-owner Denny Hamlin said. “That was good enough, was fast enough and got the results. And right now, the 45 team is exactly that. … It’s really awesome to see how hard our team works. We got less than 100 employees and we’re competing with the big guys.”
When Hamlin conceived the idea of 23XI, he laid out a five-year plan on how the team would incrementally grow from upstart to contender to consistent race-winner to championship caliber.
It was an audacious plan. Five years shouldn’t be enough time for a team to evolve into a championship-contending organization. Gibbs didn’t win its first title until its ninth year, Hendrick its 11th, and Penske its 21st. Yet, Hamlin and Jordan were somehow going to shortcut what should be a decade-long process?
Apparently, yes. Reddick is very much a title threat, and the overall Cup championship is now an attainable goal.
“I think the playoffs set up really, really well for him,” Hamlin said. “There’s not one track he’s going to be weak at. I don’t see any reason why they can’t just keep marching.”
In their fourth year of existence, 23XI Racing and co-owner Michael Jordan won the Cup Series regular-season title with Tyler Reddick’s No. 45 car. (Meg Oliphant / Getty Images)
Winning the regular season is a big step for Reddick, giving the driver of the No. 45 Toyota 15 additional bonus points that he’ll carry with him through each round of the playoffs. And he certainly earned the reward Sunday night.
A stomach bug picked up from his son had Reddick on the verge of getting nauseous inside the car, an unpleasant experience no matter the circuit but especially so at Darlington, appropriately nicknamed the “Track Too Tough to Tame.”
But when Jordan is your team owner, tapping out isn’t really an option. Instead, Reddick gritted through the discomfort to finish one point ahead of Kyle Larson to take the regular-season championship, putting forth the NASCAR equivalent of Jordan’s “Flu Game” where he overcame food poisoning to lead the Chicago Bulls to a Game 5 win in the 1997 NBA Finals.
The boss was impressed.
“I know what it feels like to be sick and trying to perform,” Jordan said. “And just to do what he did, I mean, I wasn’t going around 200 miles an hour in a car, but I’m proud of his effort, and we needed it. We won by one point. He gutted it out.”
As jovial as things were at one end of pit road, the mood was decidedly different further down. Upon climbing out of his No. 23 car, Wallace needed a moment to himself.
Entering the weekend, he knew it would be difficult to overcome the 21-point deficit he was facing if he wanted to qualify for the playoffs a second straight year. Nevertheless, he rolled into Darlington confident he’d do just that. That confidence grew after he won the pole, his first of the season, prompting him to say: “I think the pressure just switched. We’re not here to mess around.”
And at various points throughout the race, it seemed as if Wallace would punch his playoff ticket. Then, those hopes collapsed. Contact between Hamlin, Josh Berry and Ty Gibbs caused a multi-car pileup that blocked Wallace’s path. There was nothing he could do to avoid being collected, nor when Noah Gragson rear-ended him. He finished the race, but any shot of securing a playoff berth was gone.
“I’m pissed off, I’m frustrated, I’m disappointed,” Wallace said.
Fought to the very end. pic.twitter.com/NzOoq9e92R
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) September 2, 2024
Still, he tried to remain upbeat.
“At the end of the day, I’m here, there’s 40 of us that get to do this,” Wallace said. “I’m blessed at the same time. Middle of the race under caution, I’m like, ‘Damn, I’m going to be a dad here soon.’ So I’m just going through it all. It’s fun, we’re good.”
Jordan and Hamlin preferred to focus on the positives, too. They praised Wallace for the work he’s put in to improve, pointing toward the fact that the 2024 regular season had been the most consistent of his career and he surged over the last six weeks despite the pressure on his shoulders.
“The 23 team needs to recognize that sometimes you’ve got to crawl before you walk,” Hamlin said. “And I think that they’re really close, and as long as they run like this next year, they’ll make it easily. They’re running good enough now to be a playoff team, it just started too late.”
Even with Wallace not in the 16-driver playoff, the resounding message Sunday night was that 23XI is no longer just a team with the potential to accomplish big things but one that’s fulfilling that potential. With more success likely to come.
“Obviously, I’m disappointed we didn’t get both cars in,” Jordan said. “Like I said, Bubba did a great job of qualifying and trying to get himself in, but you know that disappointment makes me a little bit happy to see Reddick fighting himself to a championship.
“I’m kind of halfway feeling better and halfway feeling sad. But look, we are blessed as a team, and we’re going to keep getting better.”
GO DEEPER
2024 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs: All 16 drivers and their chances to win the title
(Top photo of Tyler Reddick celebrating his regular-season title with 23XI co-owners Curtis Polk, Denny Hamlin and Michael Jordan: Meg Oliphant / Getty Images)
