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NASCAR reporter Bob Pockrass revealed why Bubba Wallace and the 23XI team refrain from calling the team's 'Airspeed' facility a 'shop.'
23XI, co-owned by NASCAR driver Denny Hamlin and NBA legend Michael Jordan, recently inaugurated the team's new $16m race shop, nicknamed Airspeed.
While speaking on the Rubbin is Racing podcast, Bubba Wallace mentioned that the team should not refer to the facility as a shop. He said:
“Yeah, Airspeed is what we're calling it. That's the name of the shop. So can't say ‘shop’ anymore, got to be Airspeed."
This decision was made to promote 23XI's racing culture as Wallace revealed on X (formerly Twitter):
"In a way to promote the culture of the company that where they work is more than a shop, the 23XI folks refer to their shop as Airspeed. So if an employee calls it a shop, the employee gets the stink eye or something when the employee enters the shop."
The Airspeed is now home to 23XI with state-of-the-art technologies, helping in the team's development, as Wallace further explained.
Bubba Wallace 'proud' of 23XI's new 'Airspeed' race shop
Airspeed is a major step in 23XI's infrastructural development and will supposedly also assist in the team's plans for the future. It was built over a $16 million budget, incorporating the top-notch technological aspects.
Bubba Wallace mentioned that he is proud of the team's achievement of establishing Airspeed and said:
"It's fine, hashtag Airspeed. It's nice. Money is nice to have, you can do a lot of nice things with that. But they did a really good job and we sit here and think the industry hasn't had a new race shop built in 20 years and so it's just state-of-the-art stuff now so really really proud of the work that went into it, proud to be a part of it.”
Over 114,000 square feet, Denny Hamlin has stated that Airspeed's purpose is to function as 'a recruiting facility to get the best people,'. Hamlin also mentioned that the word 'Airspeed' is a combination of both himself and Michael Jordan. 'Air' for Jordan, and 'Speed' for Hamlin.
In the team's fourth year of running, this facility comes as a great showcase of progress.
