Michael Jordan’s 23XI Racing team had a fantastic time in the first playoff race of the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series at Darlington on Sunday. One of their cars finished in second place while the other one managed to stage a fantastic recovery drive and finish in seventh place. However, one of their owners was not entirely happy at the end of the contest. This was not Michael Jordan, but his partner, team co-owner, and Joe Gibbs racing driver, Denny Hamlin.

Hamlin had to deal with some bad luck on Sunday. He was looking like the best driver on track, winning the first two stages of the event convincingly. However, in the last stage, his crew made a huge mistake. After pitting for new tires, Denny reported that one of his wheels was loose, which forced him to come back to pit road again, losing valuable track position which cost him the race.

Denny Hamlin was not happy with his better-performing driver

Despite his poor result, Hamlin was proud of his team. It would have been perfect had he also finished in the top 10 but that was not meant to be. The 23XI Racing team is relatively young and they still have a long way to go before they can start challenging for the championship consistently.

The team had a stressful week ahead of the last race of the regular season as one of their full-time drivers, Bubba Wallace, had not cemented his place in the playoffs until then. There was a good chance that a first-time race winner could steal the last playoff spot away from him at Daytona.

Thankfully, that did not happen, and Bubba Wallace managed to make his way into the last 16. Despite suffering a spin early in the race, the #23 driver fought his way back to a commendable seventh place.

The other driver is Tyler Reddick, who drives the #45. Reddick was exceptional throughout Darlington, but he missed out on the win by a small margin to Kyle Larson. Although it was a good result, one aspect of Reddick’s race irked team owner Denny Hamlin.

With 58 laps to go, Reddick was leading the race with Kevin Harvick in second. Harvick’s crew had decided to pit the veteran so that he could undercut Reddick and take the lead in the race. To avoid that situation, the 23XI Racing driver had the same idea and slowed down on the outside of the track, in the path of a charging Ryan Newman.

Newman thankfully checked himself and spun without causing much damage to anyone, but Harvick’s race was ruined. The caution came out as a result of Newman’s spin, and pit road entry was closed before Harvick could go in. But it was too late for the Stewart-Haas Racing driver to stop. As a result, he was penalized and had to rejoin from the back of the longest line. This really got under the skin of Denny Hamlin.

The 23XI Racing co-owner said on a recent episode of the Actions Detrimental podcast, “This is a continued problem with the #45 of pitting under green but they’ve got to stop taking the chances that they were taking. Like, live to run another lap. Like putting yourself in immediate danger. Luckily, Newman didn’t just run right into his door and end his race. Thank goodness Newman checked up and eventually spun himself. I get it, Harvick was close to you, you don’t want to get undercut but you can’t take that kind of risk coming to pit road and it screwed Harvick for sure.”

Hamlin and Michael Jordan’s partnership in 23XI Racing has proved successful, despite the challenges they have faced. They have both drivers in the playoffs and one of them almost won at Darlington. However, Denny’s boss, Joe Gibbs, doesn’t understand why he wanted to become a team owner.

Watch this Story: Denny Hamlin Blames Tony Stewart For Letting Down “Slowest” Kevin Harvick

NASCAR legend questions Hamlin’s partnership with Michael Jordan

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On the same episode of the Actions Detrimental podcast, Joe Gibbs, owner of Joe Gibbs Racing, shared the reason why he felt that it was far better to be a driver than an owner. And he questioned Hamlin’s choice of delving into team ownership.

“You’re going to have fun, you drive a race car for a living, everybody wants to do that. You make all the money, if we win a purse on a weekend and he gets half. He pays four people to mess around with his motor over something.

“I pay 450 people to work on a race car and the other thing is, they all got great-looking girls as drivers so you got fun, money, and girls so anyway, that’s my deal. You got a good deal, I don’t know why you want to be an owner. That’s the only thing I question,” the 82-year-old racing legend said.

Gibbs might have been poking a bit of fun at his driver, but there can be no doubt that the 23XI Racing project is moving in the right direction. Now that they have achieved getting all of their drivers in the playoffs, the next goal will be fighting for wins regularly. And eventually, fighting for the championship.

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