It took dozens of attempts but Michael Jordan was finally able to attend a NASCAR Cup Series race win in person in which one of his two cars reached Victory Lane when Tyler Reddick won the GEICO 500 at Talladega this weekend.
For those who know NASCAR, Jordan attends over a dozen races each season, and is more than an owner in name only. Especially since selling his majority stake of the NBA Charlotte Hornets last year, Jordan is more involved in the daily operations of 23XI Racing than at any point since launching it with Denny Hamlin in 2021.
The team moved into a state-of-the-art facility in Huntersville, North Carolina and named it Air Speed and Jordan’s right-hand businessman Curtis Polk spends a lot of time there is well.
“He is not an absentee owner, for sure,” Hamlin said about Jordan on the Actions Detrimental podcast this week. “He cares about this. He’s a race fan first. I’m very, very grateful that we struck up the friendship that we did 14 years ago, and what it has grown into.
“It’s just been amazing. I find myself pinching myself at times that not only is things going well on the track for me in my career but to be also affiliated and have the partners that we have with Toyota and Michael Jordan and all the sponsors that on 23XI, it’s just surreal to me.”
Hamlin first met Jordan in 2010 at what was then a Charlotte Bobcats game. It’s also how Hamlin met his fiancée. This was during the height of NASCAR’s mainstream popularity and Jordan immediately liked Hamlin.
They became really close friends with Jordan attending sporadic races over the years and countless golf trips together. Hamlin eventually was sponsored by Jordan Brand as well. In time, Jordan immersed himself in the sport and wanted to get into the ownership game.
And he has really involved himself on all facets too.
“It’s hard to say what he brings other than the affiliation of being the greatest athlete in the world,” Hamlin said. “He’s obviously got some business relationships as well that he brings to the table.
“One thing I definitely love about him is that any ask and I try not ask him to do too much, but he understands when I do ask him to do something, that it’s important. And he can turn it on at the right time with the right people. He’s always curious when we do have VIP meet and greets. He wants to know their names, who are they with, what’s their affiliation, what’s their job, like he cares.”
Hamlin says that process has been surreal to him.
“I never envisioned my life would have ended up this way,” Hamlin said. “It’s just hard to put it into words, for sure.”
23XI Racing has two cars, one driven by Reddick and the other by Bubba Wallace.
For his part, Jordan quantified being able to experience a race win in person was right up there with some of his biggest sporting accomplishments.
“As you know, this is the NBA playoffs right now,” Jordan told FOX Sports right after the win. “To me, this is like an NBA playoff game. I am so ecstatic for the fans who support the sport itself. We’ve been working hard trying to get ourselves up to compete against all the top guys in this sport. But we’ve done a heck of a job just to be where we are.
“For us to win a big race like this, it means so much to me for the effort that the team has done. I’m all in. I love it. It replaces a lot of the competitiveness that I had in basketball. This is even worse because I have no control. If I was playing basketball, I have total control, but I have no control. I live vicariously through the drivers and all the crew chiefs and everybody.”
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.