BROOKLYN, Mich. — Three years after a driver’s exasperation with his pit crew, a team executive’s social media post about needing to “clean up our messes on pit lane” and frustration on behalf of one of the owners, 23XI Racing has two of the best pit crews in NASCAR.
Bubba Wallace’s unit ranks first in the series in pit crew ratings as done by Racing Insights. Teammate Tyler Reddick’s crew ranks eighth heading into Sunday’s race at Michigan International Speedway. The ratings are based on the time of pit stops, a crew’s consistency in servicing the car, positions grained during yellow-flag stops and penalties against the unit.
“It is certainly encouraging to see because we have definitely put a lot of effort into it,” 23XI Racing co-owner Denny Hamlin said of the progress the pit crews have made. “Not just money, but effort. Whether that be recruiting people, getting (them) to trust us that we have a process.”
That process started three years ago with Josh Shipplett, a tire carrier with no coaching experience who was promoted to be 23XI Racing’s pit coach.
Making the job more challenging was that 23XI Racing no longer would lease pit crews from Joe Gibbs Racing after the 2022 season. It was Shipplett’s job to find 10 pit crew members for the two teams the organization had at the time, put them in the right unit and train them to excel.
A recent decision by a federal appellant panel could lead to 23XI Racing becoming an open team in the next few weeks.
The 2022 season was a tipping point for the organization. That was just the second year for 23XI Racing, a team co-owned by Hamlin and Michael Jordan. The organization put its resources into other areas to gain speed and leased pit crews from Joe Gibbs Racing.
That May, Steve Lauletta, president of 23XI Racing, responded to a fan’s comment about Wallace’s crew by saying on social media “we have to clean up our messes on pit lane and at least keep the 23 where it runs when they pit. Working hard at this frustrating issue.”
About a month later at Nashville, Wallace’s frustration boiled after another pit road miscue cost him several spots. He told Bootie Barker, then his crew chief, he was done talking to him for the rest of the race.
By the middle of the season, Hamlin said 23XI Racing planned to have its own pit crews.
That’s what Shipplett faced as he put together a group for the 2023 season. The focus was to recruit experienced crew members because the team didn’t want to develop young crew members with two teams it felt could win immediately.
“It started with Denny and ownership allowing us to have the mindset that we need to achieve some kind of consistency before we go for speed (in pit stops),” Shipplett, now the team’s athletic director, told NBC Sports this past week. “So, that’s really what we built the teams around.
“(The mindset then was) we want to keep the drivers in the races. We know this is a new program. We don’t expect to light the world on fire, but we’re trying to not take it out of the driver’s hands, team’s hands, in any way.”
As Wallace’s team gained consistency the focus turned to going for quicker pit stops in 2024.
Christopher Bell and his new spotter will be tested in today’s race, particularly on restarts.
The focus in 2023 was to have an average variation of half a second for Wallace’s team with its pit times. As the team improved, the average variation decreased to quarter of a second. Last year, Tyler Reddick’s pit crew had an average variation of about three tenths of a second.
“What we were chasing was to get to a point (that) whenever you have half a second of variation, it’s very hard to figure out what the problem is because when you have that much variation, it’s typically not one person. It’s typically several different people. It’s just whose turn is it?
“But whenever you get down to that quarter of a second of deviation, you can kind of pinpoint what exactly the issue is.”
As Shipplett analyzed the pit crews for both teams, he moved jackman Nathan Ricketts from Reddick’s team to Wallace’s team, joining front tire changer Austin Dickey, rear tire changer Adam Hartman, tire carrier Joe Crossen and fueler Josh Pech.
“He got more consistent,” Shipplett said of Ricketts after moving to the No. 23 team. “As a jackman, he flipped a switch. He was good, he was really good last year. This year, he’s extremely good and he’s gotten extremely consistent. So the rest of the team hasn’t lost any consistency, but now their jackman has gained it.”
Seeding for the In-Season Challenge will begin with the first June race at Michigan since 2019.
The key for Ricketts, Shipplett said, was his ability to mount the right front tire. Once the jackman raises the car, his duty is to put the right front tire on for the tire changer to tighten.
The better Ricketts is at putting the right front tire on, the quicker Dickey can be in tightening it. Even half a tenth of a second — .05 seconds — can be vital. Gain .05 seconds in a couple of areas and it can mean help gain a position or more on pit road.
Reddick’s team had jackman Brandon Banks join the team from Stewart-Haas Racing, which folded after the 2024 season. Front tire changer Devin Lester and rear tire changer Dakota Ratcliff joined 23XI from SHR and moved up to Reddick’s team, joining tire carrier Wade Moore and fueler Brian Dheel.
“With the way Tyler ran, we … had expected more, we had to have more,” Shipplett said from the No. 45 pit crew.
Thus the changes going into this season and the addition of the three Stewart-Haas Racing pit crew members, who were originally hired for 23XI Racing’s third (the No. 35 of Riley Herbst). But those three excelled in the offseason and moved up to Reddick’s team.
“We couldn’t be a 20th-place pit crew (the team ranked 25th in the Racing Insights ratings last year), trying to contend for championships,” Shipplett said.
Chase Briscoe won the pole with a lap of 195.514 mph, the fastest pole in the Next Gen car era.
Another key change this season is that Shipplett moved up to the athletic director’s role after the team hired Jon Carvin to be the pit crew coach. Carvin, a former college football coach, had been with Hendrick Motorsports since 2015.
“We hired Jon because he’s that guy that can enliven the group up and command the locker room, command a timeline, has the practice plan every day,” Shipplett said. “Puts a lot of thought into it.
“So I don’t really attribute a lot of (the progress of the pit crews) to the things I’ve done. It’s just who I’ve been able to hire.”
Mistakes will still happen and time will still be lost on pit road — it happens to all teams — but the key is limiting those issues. Both Wallace’s and Reddick’s teams have, helping them gain spots on pit road this season. The result is that there’s less criticism on the radio because there are fewer issues.
“Growing up and maturing a little, you look back on the frustrating times and you see that even when you’re screaming and shouting and pissed off, that people are listening and that when they tell you they’re going to fix it, they do,” Wallace said of the pit crew struggles three years ago.
“We’re greedy and we want to fix it in the moment, but you don’t realize it takes a lot of time. Two years, three years, whatever it is, we’re starting to see things be put in place in the right spot. I appreciate everybody on that side of things for stepping up and delivering to allow our players and myself to have good Sundays.”
