23XI Racing is one of the ambitious and fastest growing teams in the NASCAR Cup garage. Co-owned by NBA legend Michael Jordan and Joe Gibbs Racing veteran Denny Hamlin , the team has established themselves as a race win contender and is expected to be at championship contenders from next-year.
Denny Hamlin is playing a significant role as the leader at 23XI, as Michael Jordan is in back seat most often, faces multiple challenges on and off the track owing to his commitments towards himself. While running his team, he also has to fight for the championship for Joe Gibbs. Hence, he often finds himself in a dilemma while racing against his cars.
23XI driver Bubba Wallace use this to his advantage. His teammate Tyler Reddick while talking to Kevin Harvick in his podcast revealed that Wallace uses this hesitancy of not wrecking his own cars to take advantage of Hamlin. The JGR veteran wouldn’t wreck his cars at the end of the day unless he is in a desperate situation as money will going out of his pocket to fix the cars.
I got the feeling pretty early on from Bubba that, you know, he tries to use Denny’s ownership in the team against him. I try to save him from that… Well, like, you know, if you’re in Denny’s shoes, right, you don’t wanna tear up your own car and you don’t wanna wreck another one of your own cars right?. Because I feel like he’s aware with how expensive this stuff can get. Reddick said via Happy Hour Podcast.
Tyler Reddick reveals how Toyota drivers race each other in tough spots
While talking about the same, he revealed via the podcast that the Toyota driver has a un-written code between them while engaging in duals. He pointed out that majority of them will not race each other 100 percentile and will keep the fight at 95 percentile as it benefit both.
I feel like it’s something that is shared amongst I think a majority of the Toyota drivers. We all race each other, probably like the 95th percentile, and don’t go any further than that, cuz it’s not worth taking that risk and having something go wrong. Reddick said.
Toyota has just eight cars in the grid in 2024, and before they had just six, hence it is to their advantage that they have most of their TRD teammates available in the race if any help in needed. But it does not mean they go soft on each other as well, as at the end of the day all of them are racers with the primary goal of winning the event.
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