LAS VEGAS — The garage stalls at Las Vegas Motor Speedway started opening at 11:30 a.m. sharp.
It was Sunday, Oct. 12, the day of the South Point 400 in the NASCAR Cup Series. Soon enough, men in racing uniforms with the Jumpman logo pushed the yellow No. 23 Toyota and the pink No. 45 Toyota out of the garage and under the sun.
The engines purred.
Then they gurgled.
Spectators gathered.
Five years since Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin announced they had formed 23XI Racing, those sweet-looking cars still draw a crowd.
“… As far as I’m concerned, we’re just getting started,” Jordan said in a statement to USA TODAY Sports.
Jordan, the legendary basketball player, and Hamlin, an elite NASCAR driver, have built a team that includes formidable racers Tyler Reddick and Bubba Wallace, the only Black driver in the Cup Series.
The team has won nine races since its debut at the start of the 2021 season. Contended against the most successful and powerful teams in NASCAR. And threatened the current state of the sport … and, possibly, 23XI Racing’s own existence.
The race team, along with Front Row Motorsports, has sued NASCAR in federal court in the Western District of North Carolina for alleged antitrust violations. The presiding judge, Kenneth Bell, warned both sides that a trial could fundamentally change NASCAR’s structure.
‘It’s hard to picture a real winner out of this if this goes to the mat, or the flag in this case,” Bell said during a hearing in June.
A trial date is set for Dec. 1, and settlement talks so far have proved futile.
‘Denny Hamlin, same character (as Michael Jordan),’ said Marc Tea, a fan who said he flew in from France to attend the South Point 400. ‘He likes a fight.’
Rumor becomes reality
Hamlin, at 44 still one of the top drivers in NASCAR, said he was at a Charlotte Hornets (then Bobcats) game in 2008 or 2009 when Jordan’s security pulled him aside. It was halftime and Hamlin was headed for the concessions area.
“I thought maybe I’d stepped in an area I probably shouldn’t have, which is why they grabbed me,’’ Hamlin, who has driven for Joe Gibbs Racing since 2005, told USA TODAY Sports.
Then he met Jordan, who at the time was owner of the team.
“He started asking me a bunch of racing questions,” Hamlin said. “And at that point we exchanged phone numbers, and then the entire second half I was just texting back and forth with him about all these racing questions that he had.’’
More than a decade later, with the two men having become friends, Hamlin was on the ninth hole of The Pointe Golf Club in Powells Point, North Carolina, he recalled. He said he checked his phone and read a published rumor: Hamlin and Jordan were looking to purchase a minority stake in a race team.
“I remember reading that and saying, ‘Man, that’s kind of funny. Should I send it to Michael or not?’ ‘
He did send it.
Jordan’s response, as Hamlin remembers it: “haha.’’
“He’s like, ‘not true,’ but if you want to make it true, let me know,” Hamlin recalled.
Hamlin said he forgot to hit his next golf shot before driving to the green while trying to figure out his next move.
They hit the gas
Steve Lauletta, the president of 23XI, said he got connected with Hamlin in 2020 through a mutual friend around the same time Hamlin’s talks with Jordan began.
“Denny goes to play golf with Michael on a Friday, calls me up and says he wants to see a business plan,’’ Lauletta told USA TODAY Sports. “And I was like, ‘oh, wow.’ So, me and a couple of guys from his management company spend a weekend writing a 70-plus page business plan on how to start a one-car race team.’’
Lauletta had served as president of Chip Ganassi Racing for a decade. He was part of three Indy 500 victories before stepping away in 2018. He thought he understood high expectations and ambition.
Then came a flurry of activity involving Jordan’s longtime business manager, Curtis Polk, who would become the team’s third co-owner.
“Denny called me and said, ‘he’s in,’ ’’ Lauletta remembered. “And I was like, ‘what do you mean he’s in?’ He’s like, ‘yeah, (Jordan) wants to start a race team. He wants to give Bubba Wallace the chance … to show that he could really be a competitive race-winning Cup driver.’
“So, I was like, ‘man, Denny, that’s great for 2022.’ And he goes, ‘no, 2021.’ And I’m like, ‘that’s 4½ months from now. What are you going to do?’ ”
They hit the gas is what they did.
They officially formed 23XI Racing, named after Jordan’s longtime NBA number (23) and the car Hamlin has driven (No. 11) since his first Cup race in 2005. They bought the necessary NASCAR charter they needed in time to compete in 2021. Added a second car in 2022. Added a third car in 2025.
In 2024, they opened a state-of-the-art facility. They used to call these places garages. But Airspeed, as the 23XI Racing facility in Huntersville, North Carolina, is known, looks more like a contemporary art design center.
The team has grown to 130 employees from the original staff of 24, according to Lauletta. In 2023, the Sports Business Journal named 23XI one of the “Best Places to Work in Sports.”
“Look, everything we do here is set by the tone of (Jordan) and Denny,’’ Lauletta said. “They’re both two of the most competitive people you’ll ever want to be around.’
Learning from Jordan
Wallace made his 23XI Racing debut at the Daytona 500 in February 2021 and won his first race driving the team’s No. 23 car in October 2021 at Talladega Superspeedway. He added a win at Kansas Speedway in September 2022.
Then Wallace went through a 100-race winless streak.
The streak ended in July with his victory at the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and a guaranteed berth in the NASCAR playoffs.
Of course, losing never sat well with Jordan. As a member of the Chicago Bulls, he punched a teammate in the face, ridiculed others and demanded the best of everyone around him.
But Wallace said Jordan, 62, has taught him ‘more of glass half-full than glass half-empty. That’s kind of his mentality. Staying focused on the positives and just making sure that you did everything that you could to produce the best result.’
It appears the man demanding changes from NASCAR has made changes within himself, too.
During his NBA career, Jordan was notoriously apolitical. ‘Republicans buy sneakers, too,’ he once said, referring to his lucrative Nike shoe deal. But the summer of 2020 marked a public shift.
In early June 2020, Jordan announced he would donate $50 million over 10 years to organizations that work to advance racial equality, social justice, and access to education. The Jordan Brand, a subsidiary of Nike, also pledged to donate another $50 million to the same causes.
And as Jordan and Hamlin were discussing the formation of a team, the basketball legend who transcended race embraced the lone Black driver in NASCAR’s premier series. On Sept. 21, 2020, on the day 23XI Racing was announced, Wallace was named the team’s first driver.
‘We wanted to be different from the get-go,’ Wallace said. ‘And I don’t think you have to go about suing the sanctioning body to prove that you’re different. I think that speaks volumes to the leadership that we have behind this team. that they’re willing to risk it all to make sure that we’re all treated equally.
‘And I can relate with that. I put it all in line for my team each and every weekend and fight for what’s fair and what’s right. And sometimes you have to ruffle with some feathers.”
NASCAR has formally recognized 23XI Racing multiple times for its efforts at promoting diversity.
How the power couple operates
Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway provided a snapshot of the working relationship between Jordan and Hamlin.
Jordan kept a low profile during the South Point 400, according to a public relations firm representing 23XI. Hamlin capped an eventful day by burning rubber and turning a couple of donuts in his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota after winning the playoff race in dramatic fashion.
Hamlin handles the day-to-day operations of 23XI Racing – while driving for JGR – and is far more visible.
“The way Michael explained it,’ Hamlin said, “is like, ‘if you were to invest in a basketball team, I wouldn’t be listening to your advice on how to do it. Hopefully, you would trust me.’ And so, it’s worked really, really well that way. And when it comes to big business decisions, we obviously talk and we confer and we come up with what we think is the best business decisions, and there’s always a compromise there.’
Then there was the antitrust lawsuit.
Before it was filed in October 2024, Hamlin said he and Jordan talked.
“The first thing Michael said to me is that we’re not going to go through this if you don’t want to because you are the one that has the most to lose,’’ Hamlin said. “And that is true. I can be blackballed from the sport. I’ll never make it into the Hall of Fame. I can lose certainly financially. This means more to me than anyone that’s involved.
“… But I’m also close enough to it to know that we’re standing up for what’s right.”
‘We’re not done yet’
At first glance, Jordan and Hamlin might not appear to be a natural fit. But Hamlin, who has three young children, a fiancée and a habit of taunting fans, notes similarities with his business partner.
“I feel like I’ve seen multiple personalities,’ Hamlin said of Jordan. “I do see the one that we go out and we play golf and we’re being competitive with each other. And then I see the family (man) Michael. And I always feel as a competitor, I’m very similar to what we saw on some of these (Jordan) documentaries, ‘The Last Dance’ specifically.’
On Sept. 28, during the second round of the NASCAR playoffs, Hamlin and Wallace were competing for the win at the Hollywood Casino 400 in overtime at Kansas Speedway. Hamlin forced Wallace up the track, into the outside wall and out of the lead – a move that cost them both the win.
Like Jordan, Hamlin will always try to take the winning shot if he has one. So, it’s likely no coincidence that the two fierce competitors were the ones to take their shot with a lawsuit they believe will improve the sport.
‘When Denny, Curtis, and I started 23XI, we had a shared and clear vision: build a winning team and bring fresh energy and a new perspective to NASCAR,’’ Jordan said in a statement to USA TODAY Sports. “Five years later, we’ve done that and more.
‘We built an organization from the ground up, assembled a great staff, attracted top sponsors, and brought innovation to the sport. We’ve grown from one car to three and captured a regular-season championship in just our fourth year (Reddick in 2024). And we’re not done yet.’
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