Kaulig Racing fires Dillon spotter after Vegas crash

Joe White, who had served as the spotter for Ty Gibbs, posted on social media on Wednesday that he’s been fired by Kaulig Racing ahead of this weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Talladega Superspeedway.

White wrote, “Got to Talladega. Parked the bus, got fired. In an Uber to the airport to go home for the weekend. Also to be clear, it was already determined that I would not be spotting for Ty next year, but that I would still be with Kaulig in some fashion. But not now.”

The termination comes three days after Dillon was involved in a crash at Las Vegas Motor Speedway with NASCAR Cup Series playoff driver William Byron. Dillon had slowed in Turn 4 to pit when he was run into from behind at full speed by Byron. The Hendrick Motorsports driver said he did not know that Dillon was pitting.

“I never saw him wave, so I didn’t see any indication that he was pitting,” Byron said. “It was probably 12 to 15 laps after we had pitted, so I thought the cycle was fully over. Nobody said anything to my spotter, from what I know. I had zero idea.

“Everybody had been wrapping the paint really far around the corner, and that’s what I was doing to have a good lap. I was watching him thinking, okay, he missed the bottom a little bit here, and then he started slowing, and I had no idea what was going on. I’m just devastated. I had no indication. I obviously wouldn’t have just driven full speed into the back of him like that.”

Dillon defended how he pitted and said he didn’t do anything different from previous pit cycles. He also said he was told by White that Byron’s spotter, Brandon Lines, was told they were pitting.

“Maybe I didn’t wave him off enough, but I feel like at this level, you kind of trust your spotter to do that,” Dillon said. “I don’t know what we do different there. I hate it for the Hendrick guys. I hate it for Chevrolet that it happened that way, but I’m not even looking out the mirror at that point, I’m just trying to hit my points to get on pit road, and he hit me hard. It’s an unfortunate way for that to happen.”

White told The Athletic that he didn’t get to Lines, who was positioned toward Turn 1 on the roof, and physically tell him they were pitting. However, he said he communicated they were pitting by making eye contact and giving a hand signal.

“I pointed to the bottom, twice, and mouthed the words ‘we’re pitting’ – even though I know he can’t hear and he probably can’t read my lips,” White said. “But I gestured just like I would do any other person that we’re pitting. Obviously, that was misunderstood. He thought we were giving him the bottom, and that was not the case.”

Frank Deiny will serve as Dillon’s spotter at Talladega.