23XI Racing is coming off the high of arguably the biggest race weekend in company history. The fifth-year team won its first crown jewel race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, with its inaugural driver Bubba Wallace snapping a 100-race winless streak.
The magnitude of the weekend wasn’t solely on the race track. Sure, Wallace’s breakthrough triumph guarantees at least one 23XI team will qualify for the playoffs. If there are two repeat winners among the final four regular season races – or 23XI’s Tyler Reddick wins a race – the team is assured to have two teams hunting a championship come the fall.
On July 25, outside the Gainbridge Fieldhouse, home to the NBA’s Indiana Pacers and WNBA’s Indiana Fever, 23XI held its first Intersect Presented by Xfinity event. It’s the brainchild of the team’s vp, Jamie Ruiz, formerly with NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. Discovery.
The event was a brand platform where racing connected with car culture, fashion and music to create a distinctive experience across multiple curated events. The goal was to expose new fans to NASCAR.
“As we continue to talk about ‘How do we evolve the brand and constantly show up in new ways,’ it started with Bubba’s idea of Bubba’s Block Party with a NASCAR-owned initiative of how are we reaching new fans, in the community, doing things that are organic,” Ruiz said. “When we wanted to move that over to a 23XI-led innovation that way we could integrate all of our partners, all of our drivers and it wasn’t going to be limited to just Bubba.”
With more than six months of planning, 23XI leaned on IMS, which had a connection to the Fieldhouse. Xfinity connected with Fever player Makayla Timpson and had her in attendance. The organization featured plenty of its current partners with activations, including Xfinity, McDonald’s, Monster Energy, Logitech, Air Force and Shady Ray’s.
Wallace, Reddick and Riley Herbst all made appearances, showing off their athletic skills in a game of knockout.
“It was important for us as a team to get it away from the track and be in the community where we knew people were,” Ruiz added. “Our sponsors are part of our team because of what we stand for and that’s important to growing the sport, reaching new fans and being in the community.”
By all measures, the first Intersect event was a success. More than 1,900 people registered, all receiving a ticket to Sunday’s Brickyard 400. Children from Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Indiana were also in attendance. Wallace capped the weekend off with the coveted victory.
“For what we want to do with that for the 23XI brand and for our partners, it was a success on all measures,” Steve Lauletta, 23XI president, said. “We will go back and analyze the numbers and engagement. We had a good cross section of current fans and people that were in downtown Indianapolis that weren’t going to make it out to the track and came there and [got tickets to the race.
“What I preach to the team is to make sure between the 23XI brand and what we do stands out, not only for us but for our partners. The way to do that is to not do whatever everyone else is doing. I don’t just mean everyone else in the NASCAR garage, but overall, I keep my eye on all other kinds of sports properties and entertainment properties. I want us to appeal to a wide range of people and that means you have to reach them in many different ways while not taking our eye off what is the core to our business which is what we do at the race tracks every week.”
Xfinity signed on as the presenting sponsor of Intersect, as the company has beefed up its partnership with 23XI in 2025. Over the last two seasons, Xfinity sponsored a 23XI car in a pair of events, highlighted by Wallace driving the selfie paint scheme to honor reward members at Martinsville Speedway in the penultimate race weekend of the year to coincide with the brand having the naming rights to the Cup race.
In 2025, Xfinity will rep a 23XI car in seven events. In February, 23XI also unveiled the Xfinity Speed Center at its Airspeed headquarters, serving as a communications hub for team personnel.
The partnership between the two entities continues to evolve.
“It started as a bit of an extension to their NASCAR partnership, and now, it really stands on its own with a lot of things we talk to all of our partners about doing,” Lauletta said. “Xfinity has really embraced let’s try different things, let’s do things that you’ve thought about before and haven’t done because we’ll do it.”
As Matt Lederer, vp of brand partnership and engagement at Comcast, explained, the partnership with 23XI is key in a long list of activations with multiple sport properties. It continues to be a driving force for the brand to think of new ways of activating and being present at the race track.
“Our partnership with 23XI Racing has been instrumental in driving innovation, competition, and fan engagement both on and off the track,” Lederer said. “Through our work with 23XI Racing, it’s important that we always find unique ways to connect fans with more of what they love and being the presenting partner of 23XI Intersect gives us the opportunity to welcome new fans into the racing community.”
After being the primary sponsor for Reddick in Sunday’s Brickyard 400, Xfinity has one race remaining on its sponsorship schedule for 23XI in 2025, coming at Martinsville with Wallace.
Dustin joined the Frontstretch team at the beginning of the 2016 season. 2020 marks his sixth full-time season covering the sport that he grew up loving. His dream was to one day be a NASCAR journalist, thus why he attended Ithaca College (Class of 2018) to earn a journalism degree. Since the ripe age of four, he knew he wanted to be a storyteller.