At the end of his media availability Friday at Martinsville Speedway, Denny Hamlin became visibility frustrated when the last question was directed at him.
“What needs to be done with 23XI? It’s been a rough patch for you guys for sure,” Hamlin was asked.
The Joe Gibbs Racing driver, in his second season as co-owner of 23XI Racing, rubbed one hand over his face as he likely thought about that rough stretch.
“Just trying to stop the bleeding there,” Hamlin began.
The last two weeks have seen finishes of 38th and 26th for Bubba Wallace at Circuit of the Americas and Richmond Raceway and finishes of 32nd and 35th for Kurt Busch.
At COTA, Wallace’s DNF result came after one of his rear wheels fell off after not being properly secured. That resulted in his crew chief Bootie Barker and two pit crew members being suspended for four races.
For Busch, he crossed the finish line at Richmond 109 laps off the lead. That was after he went to the garage early with a fuel pressure problem that caused him to stall on the track.
“The freak thing that happens with the 45,” Hamlin said. “We got a new sponsor over there and the car’s sitting in the garage for 100 laps.”
The results were an unwanted damper on Hamlin’s first win of the season at Richmond.
“The win was really exciting until you get out of the car and you look down the (scoring) pylon and say ‘what the f—? What’s going on?'” Hamlin said. “It’s agitating, because different things on different teams, but it’s just a two-week something we got to get out of.”
So far 23XI Racing has three top fives and four tops 10s through seven races this year. Busch earned consecutive top fives at Phoenix Raceway and Atlanta Motor Speedway.
“We’re trying to address all the issues that there is,” Hamlin said. “23 cars’ pit crew’s not doing well. I’m in a meeting with Joe Gibbs Racing and I thank them for everything they do for me and then we walk out of that meeting and into another and I’m cussing them out because we’re just not doing a good enough job over there. It’s just a very interesting thing that goes on, but that’s part of it.”
Since Barker was suspended, Wallace has been paired with Dave Rogers at crew chief. Rogers was crew chief for Daniel Hemric last year when he won the Xfinity championship.
“It’s a growing program,” Wallace told reporters. “Obviously, we’re behind with our without penalty from COTA. So we’re just trying to get the right people in place and I think we have a great flowchart of what we got going on with the right people in the right place, but it just all comes down to ‘you doing your job, I’ll do my job, and we all do it together.’ And so it’s just mistakes that happen that we got to clean up. Race teams have mistakes. We seem to have a few more than others right now, but still early in the season.”
In qualifying Friday Wallace was 21st fastest, while Busch will start 18th.
Hamlin is trying to look on the bright side.
“Hopefully, we look back at this two months from now and say ‘it’s just a little bump in the road,’ because certainly it’s not acceptable by any means,” Hamlin said.