Michael Jordan is a man of perfection. Truly, one does not get to the level of the NBA superstar if they don’t have that hunger and dedication to be perfect in their game. However, perhaps the same cannot be said of his NASCAR Cup Series team 23XI Racing. According to veteran spotter Brett Griffin, the team’s pit crew has not had a good year and has been responsible for throwing away several potential race wins. One of them was at the Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday, with the driver being Tyler Reddick.
Tyler Reddick had to bear the brunt at Texas
Reddick was in the lead of the race at one point and could have had a fantastic chance to challenge for P1. However, a poorly executed pit stop took him out of the running as he finished P4. Overall, it was a good day for the team as Bubba Wallace finished P7. However, no top-10 finish can ever help with the disappointment of letting a race win slip. Brett Griffin was quite critical of this aspect of 23XI Racing on a recent episode of the ‘Door Bumper Clear’ podcast.
“23XI pit crews wholly give away races. Tyler Reddick had a massive lead yesterday…and I know how competitive Denny and Michael Jordan are, but man 23XI has got to get their pit crew problems fixed,” he said. Bubba Wallace spotter Freddie Kraft, who is a part of the 23XI setup, was a part of the conversation and he seemed uncomfortable. But he said that the crew members had to work on these flaws since hiring new people was out of the question. “Unless you can get some developmental guy who can bring up, you’re not gonna go hire anybody away from a team in the middle of the year like this,” Kraft simply said.
However, Griffin’s tirade against 23XI Racing did not just stop there! The spotter made it an issue of pay scale and contracts of those in the 23XI Racing pit crews as he urged them to do their job properly.
Veteran spotter explains disparity in pay between spotters and pit crews
It is common knowledge that both spotters and pit crews are incredibly important for a driver to have, but there is reportedly a disparity in their salaries as the latter take home a lot more. So naturally, if a pit member ends up making a mistake, a spotter is likely to get a bit annoyed. Being a spotter himself, Brett Griffin shed some light on this inequality between the two positions and urged the crew members to deliver on the track since they had such huge contracts to their names.
“It is so much different. These guys have been under contract for years, but they’ve not been in long-term contracts for years like they are now. They’re locking these guys in for 5 years and that’s longer than most driver contracts are for…but there is such a big emphasis on pit stops and for all the right reasons and those guys make a big check. They get a big pay check, a lot more than the spotters make, by the way. And when the race is on the line, it’s our job to keep the driver safe, to keep him out of accidents and help them win, but it is also the pit crew’s job,” he said.
If Brett Griffin’s claims are indeed true, then 23XI will definitely have to pay more attention to their pit strategies. But the team is likely to be already aware of that. Having said that, do you think they will they do a better job at Talladega and help Wallace and Reddick notch up a favorable finish? Let us know your predictions!
