I watched with interest the report that Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin will team up to field a NASCAR team next year, and Bubba Wallace would be the driver.
I think this will be great for the sport. I’m sure there are a lot of Jordan fans who don’t watch NASCAR, and just having Jordan’s name on a team will entice them to check it out. Once they do, I expect a majority of first time watchers will become fans, and that can only be good for the sport.
I was somewhat surprised to hear Jordan say he watches the races every week, although I probably shouldn’t have been since he grew up in North Carolina. However, it’s not known as a popular sport among African Americans. Then again, neither was golf at one time but Jordan is a huge golfer.
One of my first questions when I heard this was if the number 23 was available, and after some research it appears Hamlin already has that number on his team. He designed a number 23 car with the famous Jordan “dunking silhouette” on the side panel for the Daytona race in February of this year. Casey Kirwan drove that car, but I’d be very surprised if that wasn’t Wallace’s number next year.
While Jordan had great success with the number 23 in basketball, it hasn’t been as lucky in NASCAR. The last win for a number 23 car in a NASCAR race was in March of 1954 when Al Keller drove a Hudson to a win at Oglethorpe Speedway in Savannah, GA. Jimmy Spencer had eight top 10 finishes driving the number 23 car and finished second twice, but never won. Whenever I think of him I recall the one-liner, “gentlemen and Jimmy Spencer, start your engines.”
Jordan won six NBA championships wearing the number 23, but he won’t have to win six NASCAR championships to make his team a success. I’d say six wins would do it, and I’ll be rooting for him next year when, hopefully, things will be back to normal with fans at the track.
