\u201cSize 13,\u201d Michael Jordan answered immediately of the DAYTONA 500 champion\u2019s ring he will receive \u2013 and forever cherish \u2013 as team co-owner of the No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota that Californian Tyler Reddick drove to a dramatic victory Sunday at Daytona International Speedway.<\/p>\n
A six-time NBA Champion and five-time league Most Valuable Player, Jordan, 62, was absolutely thrilled to add a win in NASCAR\u2019s most celebrated race to his collection of legendary sports hardware. The Victory vibe was absolutely unmistakable.<\/p>\n
Reddick\u2019s amazing final lap push to claim his \u2013 and the 23XI Racing team\u2019s \u2013 first DAYTONA 500 championship Sunday evening was a high-stakes move resulting in the high-wattage victory. Something Reddick\u2019s team co-owner Jordan knows a lot about.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hung in there all day,\u201d Jordan said Sunday night amid the high-fives, loud call-outs and celebratory toasts he was enjoying. \u201cGreat strategy by the team, and we gave ourselves a chance at the end. Look, I\u2019m ecstatic. I don\u2019t even know what to say. It feels like I won a championship.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 6-foot-6 former NBA all-star celebrated in Daytona Victory Lane \u2013 at one point lifting the 5-foot-5 Reddick off the ground in a huge bear hug and then ultimately helping Reddick raise the iconic Harley J. Earl DAYTONA 500 winners\u2019 trophy above their heads, grinning ear-to-ear amongst the confetti-filled celebration.<\/p>\n
There now exists a \u201cnew\u201d iconic photograph of Jordan cradling the DAYTONA 500 trophy in much the same way he was photographed hugging the NBA championship trophies so many times over so many seasons.<\/p>\n
Jordan and three-time DAYTONA 500 champion Denny Hamlin are both superstars in their respective sports, and on Sunday Reddick gave the 23XI Racing team co-owners an opportunity to raise the bar again.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s big for the sport,\u201d Hamlin said of Jordan\u2019s presence at tracks all season and his friend\u2019s genuine jubilation following Sunday\u2019s victory. \u201cHe\u2019s the most popular athlete in the world. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s any disputing that.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe loves the sport, and certainly he goes to a lot of races. Sometimes you don\u2019t even see him and he\u2019s there. He makes more races than people know. But he loves this race team.\u201d<\/p>\n
During a recent company-wide meeting with the 23XI team \u2013 which fields Toyotas fulltime for Reddick, Bubba Wallace\u00a0 (who finished eighth at Daytona) and Riley Herbst (who finished 10th), Hamlin reminded the organization that Jordan is \u201call-in\u201d and a passionate supporter of the six-year-old team he helped build from the ground up.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was like, \u2018do you guys understand the responsibilities that you have, that you have the power to bring joy to Michael Jordan?’\u201d Hamlin recalled. \u201cI told them, \u2018You have that power. Nobody else can do it.\u2019 There\u2019s nothing else that can bring him the joy that seeing his team win can do.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey took it to heart today.\u201d<\/p>\n
And it is a unique opportunity to diversify success for such a great athlete.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve met very few people that love the sport of NASCAR more than Michael Jordan, which is so cool,\u201d said 23XI Racing President Steve Lauletta. \u201cAnd we get to be around it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to take so much pride and pleasure that this is his [Jordan\u2019s] competitive outlet and what we can deliver for him, experiences like he had yesterday and the joy that comes on him, how he literally jumps up and down and just loves it. It\u2019s so much fun for all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the traditional DAYTONA 500 winner\u2019s breakfast Monday morning, the room was filled with not only Reddick\u2019s team but crew and staff from all four of the teams (also No. 67 Corey Heim) 23XI entered in the race. They watched as Reddick put his handprints, shoe print and autograph into plaster and into DAYTONA 500 immortality.<\/p>\n
It was such a milestone victory for everyone and completes a personal Daytona International Speedway trifecta for Reddick, 30, who now has wins at the track in all three of NASCAR\u2019s major series.<\/p>\n
As with those before him Reddick was prepared to leave Daytona Beach and embark on a national media tour to celebrate the victory heading into Sunday\u2019s Autotrader 400 at Atlanta\u2019s EchoPark Speedway (3 p.m. ET on FOX, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).<\/p>\n
Other races have winners, but as Reddick is keen to remind, \u201cWe are DAYTONA 500 champions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cSize 13,\u201d Michael Jordan answered immediately of the DAYTONA 500 champion\u2019s ring he will receive \u2013 and forever…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,925,3932,374,77,634,582,721,722,82,926],"class_list":["post-479191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-daytona","tag-denny-hamlin","tag-fox","tag-international","tag-nascar","tag-racing","tag-series","tag-speedway","tag-sports","tag-toyota"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}