Ep. 346 | Mike Wheeler

Ep. 346 | Mike Wheeler

From The Racing Writer's Podcast by JB15 Network

March 30, 2026 · 39 min · Season 9 · Episode 346

About this episode

Mike Wheeler reflects on his role in building 23XI Racing and the team's journey over the past five years.

23XI Racing has done a lot of great things in a short amount of time, and from the beginning has been Mike Wheeler. He was one of the architects of bringing Denny Hamlin’s vision to life, and he joins the show to reflect on those days. We start off with explaining his new title and taking on new responsibilities; the pride of having his fingerprints on the creation of the race team; what it means to build a culture and the importance of that for 23XI Racing; the first days actually starting in Wheeler’s two-car garage at home; the early days of being able to lay hands on race cars; what happened to the diary he was keeping at the time; the top of mind reflections from the first five years; his previous relationship with Hamlin making things easier to be one of the guy’s building the team; still having somewhat of a small team feel; reflections on expansion and thoughts as it was happening; finding solid ground now after five years; the perspective building a race team gave him; building a competitive race team and insight into an alliance; the change from 2025 to 2026 and the early season success; meeting expectations and milestones et for the first five years; having two crown…

People in this episode

Guest: Mike Wheeler

Topics covered

  • race team building
  • NASCAR
  • 23XI Racing
  • team culture
  • expansion
  • success

Keywords

  • Mike Wheeler
  • 23XI Racing
  • Denny Hamlin
  • race team
  • NASCAR
  • team culture
  • expansion
  • success

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: 23XI Racing, Tony Monge

More episodes of The Racing Writer's Podcast

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the The Racing Writer's Podcast podcast page.