Michael Jordan raised his arms in victory, flashed that signature smile, shouted toward the heavens and began exchanging embraces.
And the NBA playoffs were on another channel.
Jordan, the co-owner of 23XI Racing, watched as his driver Tyler Reddick survived a last-lap crash and found his way to NASCAR Victory Lane at the end of the Geico 500 on Sunday at Talladega. For the first time, Jordan, who built the organization along with Denny Hamlin in 2020, got to go as well.
“This to me is like an NBA playoff game, I am so ecstatic,” Jordan said in a postrace interview. “To my wife and my kids and everybody: Yeah we did it! I’m sorry I left you home.”
As the NBA Playoffs opened over the weekend, the timing couldn’t have been more fitting. Jordan has made regular appearances at racetracks over the past few years but had never been on hand for a victory prior to Sunday.
Yet, 21 years after he retired from basketball — for the last time, anyway — the competitive spirit that endeared him to a globe of sports fans shone through yet again.
“It means so much to me and for the effort this team has done,” he said. “Look, I’m all in. I love it.”
And yet, there’s one glaring difference between the hardwood and the racetrack, one Jordan hinted makes NASCAR ownership tougher than his playing days.
“It replaces a lot of the competitiveness I had in basketball but this is even worse because I have no control,” Jordan grinned. “So, I live vicariously through the drivers and the crew chiefs and everybody.”
Let’s go through the gears.
First gear
Michael McDowell seemed to be in control and at very least, Ford seemed to be headed to Victory Lane for the first time in 2024.
But when McDowell swung high and then low to block Brad Keselowski entering the tri-oval on the last lap, he spun himself, stymied Keselowski’s momentum and allowed Reddick to sneak by both with a full-on fracas erupting behind them.
Keselowski left dejected. McDowell left kicking himself.
“I felt like I was clear but here’s the reality of it, I made a bad move and crashed the field and it’s my responsibility to do a better job than that,” he said.
Second gear
Cue up Paula Cole: “Where have all the pylons gone?”
Or something like that.
What started as an observation from Denny Hamlin about the disappearance of the scoring pylon at Texas Motor Speedway became an all-out conspiracy when, lo and behold, the column in Talladega was missing as well.
It triggered a week’s worth of questions and comments from drivers, speculation from fans and investigations from reporters. No word yet on Dover’s scoring situation.
Here are some of our favorite Twitter fodder on the subject from the past week:
Third gear
Kyle Busch didn’t hide his feelings about his 27th-place finish on Sunday and used social media to air his grievances.
While the chaotic finish will be the talking point from Talladega, it overshadowed a closing run to the checkers that was largely uneventful, with two lanes running side-by-side and any attempt at creating a third lane being punished by banishment to the back.
That was Busch’s fate and he took to Twitter in a scathing message that ended in, “I hate these (angry emoji) cars!!!”.
Fourth gear
Martin Truex Jr. is the defending race winner at Dover and with four victories, is the winningest active driver at the one-mile, high-banked oval. Kyle Larson has the best active finish at 8.6.