23XI Racing is one of the most interesting teams in the current charter market. While some teams are making big moves, 23XI Racing’s plans with a potential charter remain largely up to speculation. What would 23XI Racing do with an extra charter?
Purchasing a third charter helps both 23XI Racing and Toyota in different ways. Both from a practical standpoint and an optics standpoint.
Purchasing a third charter would mean 23XI Racing has an extra team, which helps them both financially and from a competition standpoint. Yes, they have to pay to run an extra car, but, they also bring in more money via sponsorship and purse money. This also means they have one more car to build a notebook on for setups at different tracks on a weekend or throughout the season.
It would also put 23XI Racing in line with the top race teams in NASCAR. Since charters were introduced in 2016, every Champion has come from a team of 3 or more cars except for one, in 2017 with Front Row Motorsports and Martin Truex Jr. Having multiple cars doesn’t necessarily equate to success, but, the teams that are winning races have multiple cars.
From Toyota’s perspective, they could use more cars on the grid. Chevy and Ford currently have 14 chartered teams compared to Toyota, which only has 8. With JGR already at the 4-car limit, Toyota has to look at their other race teams.
With more race teams, Toyota has more places to glean information for improvements. Toyota also has an extra seat if they want to bring up prospects that are in the Toyota pipeline.
23XI Racing has been by far the most outspoken race team during the current charter negotiations. Denny Hamlin has been particularly outspoken, and he even suggested when asked about Charters at Texas that 23XI would not be interested without a charter agreement in place.
There is no Charter agreement as far as I’m concerned there’s nothing to buy or sell, but 23XI is happy with their two teams currently. I don’t know what rumors are going on, but, certainly 23XI is happy with where they’re at right now.
Denny Hamlin as said on Out of the Groove
Michael Jordan also suggested to The New York Times that the sport could “Die” without making charters permanent because it would become too expensive for race teams. The one quoted the most in the recent article in The Athletic on charters is Curtis Polk, a key figure at 23XI Racing.
23XI Racing is playing both sides of the coin here. They are trying to negotiate with NASCAR on charters, but, they are also reportedly searching for charters as well, even if Denny Hamlin played down those rumors at Texas.
23XI Racing is in a strange place right now. They’re reportedly in the charter market, but, key figures in the organization have preached doom and gloom about the NASCAR charter negotiations. We will see where they really stand soon.
