During Lap 236 of 267 of NASCAR's South Point 400 at Las Vegas, Ty Dillon was involved in a crash with William Byron before entering pit road. The Hendrick Motorsports driver had no idea that Dillon was going to pit and slammed into the back of the No. 10 Chevrolet Camaro with a speed difference of at least 50 miles per hour, causing heavy damage to both vehicles.
Ahead of the collision, Byron's spotter had told him that Dillon would move up and out of his way. The argument from the No. 24 team is that nobody informed them about the No. 10 car planning to pit.
Joe White, Dillon's spotter, had defended himself to his driver that he had informed the No. 24 team ahead of time.
Still, White was heading to Talladega on Wednesday for NASCAR's Round of 8 race with restlessness in his heart. He anticipated a call from the leadership at Kaulig Racing at any given moment following Sunday's blunder, and it came as expected.
Chris Rice, the team's CEO, informed him that he had been fired as Dillon's spotter, effective immediately.
While heartbreaking, the outcome did not surprise White. He told The Athletic in an interview after the news broke, "I got fired. I got let go from my position. I’m disappointed but not surprised either, as I knew I wasn’t going back to spot that car next year anyway."
White Explains His Case
White stressed that he communicated to the No. 24 team's spotter, Brandon Lines, that Dillon was going to pit. But the method in which he did so leaves a lot of room for questions and concerns that cannot be answered.
He said, "Brandon is at the other end of the spotter stand towards Turn 1, so I was like, ‘I've got to get to Brandon. So I hustled down there. I didn’t get to him; I didn’t touch him on the shoulder, turn him around, but I got, I would say, four or five feet from him, a couple of people down, and he turned and looked at me. We made eye contact."
You were up there on the spotter stand?
— Joe White (@White_Joe47) October 16, 2025
"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, but I gestured just like I would do any other person that we’re pitting."
Lines likely misunderstood the gesture and believed that Dillon was going to give Byron the bottom lane. Byron's crew chief, Rudy Fugle, too, underlined in an appearance on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio that his spotter did not receive the message clearly, and whatever he did, he did not get it early enough.
Why White Being Fired Is a Surprise
Ahead of the dismissal, Rice had spoken to the NASCAR world on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio as well. He refused to take blame for the accident and asked, "I hate it for everybody, but I'm not going to take blame. You're sitting at a stoplight and you get hit from the backend, are you going to take the blame when the car behind you hit you?"
It is a mystery why he chose to fire White when he clearly stated that the flaw was not on the No. 10 team's part. White had already been aware that he would not return as Dillon's spotter in 2026. But the team had assured him that he would remain with them in some fashion, most likely associated with the Craftsman Truck Series operation.
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.
— Joe White (@White_Joe47) October 15, 2025
This latest development has voided that unwritten agreement. Frank Deiny will serve as Dillon's spotter at Talladega this weekend, coming over from A.J. Allmendinger's No. 16 team. T.J. Bell will fill the spot he leaves behind.
This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Oct 16, 2025, where it first appeared in the Racing section. Add Athlon Sports as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
