NASCAR: Does Michael Jordan have enough patience?

NBA legend Michael Jordan is used to winning. Will he have enough patience to continue that trend as a NASCAR Cup Series team owner?

Michael Jordan has been a winner pretty much his entire athletic career. His six NBA titles and one NCAA championship really say all you need to know about him as an athlete and an icon. However, his newest position as a NASCAR team owner is a different proposition altogether.

Now that he is in the second half of his first season as a NASCAR owner, how does the 23XI Racing team measure up to other teams’ first seasons?

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A one-car team is always a challenging proposition, as it always better to at least have one teammate on the track than none. However, many now well-established teams started off with just one car and grew from there.

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Hendrick Motorsports, now the premier destination for NASCAR drivers, was helmed by Geoff Bodine during their days as a one-car team in 1984 and 1985.

During those two seasons, Bodine garnered three wins, 17 top five finishes and 28 top 10 finishes. He was a premier driver during those years and went on to have what was a rather testy rivalry with Dale Earnhardt.

Joe Gibbs Racing operated as a one-car team from 1992 to 1998. They were led by Dale Jarrett from 1992 to 1994 and then by Bobby Labonte from 1995 to 1998.

During those years, Jarrett and Labonte combined for nine wins, 51 top five finishes and 99 top 10 finishes. Gibbs caught both on their ascent, with Jarrett later winning the championship with Robert Yates Racing in 1999 and Labonte scoring Joe Gibbs Racing’s first championship in their second season as a multi-car team in 2000.

Now, comparing 23XI Racing to those two powerhouses isn’t exactly fair, as they all featured A-list drivers who were titans of their eras. It may be more appropriate to compare what 23XI Racing are doing to two similar, smaller teams.

The first of these two teams is Hall of Fame Racing. In their entire existence from 2006 to 2009, they featured drivers by committee, with a lineup consisting of Terry Labonte, Joey Logano, Bobby Labonte, Ken Schrader, J.J. Yeley among others.

There is no question that this was a respectable lineup. Regardless of the talent, however, the equipment wasn’t there, and Hall of Fame Racing went winless with just four top five finishes and two additional top 10 results during those four years. It’s notable that this was also a celebrity athlete-owned team, skippered by Troy Aikman, Roger Staubach and Bill Saunders.

Furniture Row Racing is a much better success story. After entering the series in 2005, they didn’t secure a single top 10 finish until 2011, the season during which they also netted their first win with Regan Smith.

What makes Furniture Row Racing a successful example is that Martin Truex Jr. brought big-time respectability to the team by winning the championship in 2017 (they did run a second car that year) and coming close to a repeat in 2018, finishing runner-up. Truex won 17 races with the team from 2014 to 2018, including eight in his banner year.

But patience was required to get to that point.

23XI Racing are doing as well as can be realistically expected, but that doesn’t mean Jordan is realistic. Bubba Wallace, the driver of the #23 Toyota, sits in 21st place in the point standings with just one top 10 finish. It’s important to note that this top 10 finish, a fifth place result, came in a fuel mileage race, so it’s a bit misleading.

Due in large part to his competitive nature, Jordan said after this race that he now expects a top 10 finish from Wallace every race. This is in addition to his earlier quote that “we don’t sign check for losers.”

These sorts of sentiments likely won’t endear him to any possible future talents, barring an incredible second half of the 2021 season and a continuous upward climb over the next few years. These next few years will be the litmus test for the staying power of 23XI Racing.

The lessons here are that it takes a lot of patience, and sometimes a lightening strike, to find that one driver who can propel your team to the top.

And another one is that success breeds success.

In the first two examples, Rick Hendrick and Joe Gibbs are “people people” for whom drivers want to win, and they were able to parlay the success of their first drivers into expanding the team and finding long-term success and sustainability with many drivers. Can Jordan tamper his competitive side enough to become one as well?

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If 23XI Racing hope to join the A-listers of NASCAR Cup Series teams, Jordan will need the answer sooner rather than later.

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