Freddie Kraft sounds off on Bubba Wallace spotter concerns for NASCAR Chicago Street Race

Bubba Wallace voiced his frustrations this past weekend in Atlanta about the limited visibility for spotters at road courses. Wallace accused NASCAR of not caring, calling it “complete bullsh*t.”

Freddie Kraft, Wallace’s spotter, said on his “Door Bumper Clear” podcast that multiple spotter stands in Mexico City last month were “useless.” Kraft claimed that he and his fellow spotters asked NASCAR to make room in the grandstands for more visibility. NASCAR said no, he said.

Freddie Kraft rips NASCAR over spotter stand locations

“This was a valid point and the point he’s trying to make is when we go to these races — like, we went to Mexico — one of the spotter stands was useless. Completely useless and that was Turn 15. You could literally see the exit to Turn 15 and the entry to pit road,” Kraft said. “So, unless somebody spun out and was sitting there, that was the only time you were actually going to do anything, and that was the primary location when we got there. … Turn 1 was even more useless. You were down on the ground looking straight down this frontstretch. So, you had no depth perception getting through 1, you could see a little in 2 and 3 but you were really low, so it was hard.

“Turn 9 was fine, but we were trying to work with NASCAR, like, ‘Just make 1 and 9 the primary location. If you can move us up the grandstand, you can have a really good view and see everything,’ and they were like, ‘No, we can’t put you up there.’ I’m like, ‘There’s 30 or 40 of us, just block off 40 seats somewhere or two rows of 20.’ [They said], ‘Nope, we can’t do it.’ The idea is we’re here for safety. I know we do a lot of sh*t up there now, but the primary goal is safety. You got guys down there — you can’t see.”

Freddie Kraft backs up Bubba Wallace frustration about limited visibility

Spotters play an integral role in the safety of drivers on the racetrack. Obviously, not being able to see in every turn is an issue, though road courses present a different challenge. Kraft said there were blind spots in Mexico City, and he expects the same in this Sunday’s Chicago Street Race. Still, he finds it frustrating NASCAR’s unwillingness to listen to their feedback.

“Just going forward, Chicago — they moved the primary location this year from one side of the frontstretch to the other. So, again, we don’t know what we can see and can’t see when we get there,” Kraft said. “Anytime we do something, we change a spotter stand or go to a new track, we’re all willing to go scout a new location out and tell you where we need to be, especially on road courses, and they just never ask.

“They put us wherever they want, and we get there and we’re like, ‘OK, this doesn’t work.’ We’ll see what Chicago is like. … Mexico had a lot of blind spots, Chicago is going to have a lot of blind spots.”