By Noah Poser, Staff Writer
Long before Bobby Dotter became the owner of SS-Green Light Racing, he was just a boy growing up in the city of Chicago.
It’s the city in which he began a racing career that would eventually see him go on to have notable success in both the ASA Series and the NASCAR Xfinity Series (then known as the Busch Series), winning races in both while going up against the likes of NASCAR Hall of Famers Dale Earnhardt, Jeff Gordon and Bobby Labonte.
Chicago is also where I was able to take the time to sit down with Dotter, one of just a handful of individuals to have won races in the Xfinity Series as both an owner and driver, during the Chicago Street Race weekend.
Among the topics of conversation were breaking down how the current season is treating SS-Green Light Racing, looking back on some of the race team’s more successful years and how they came about, and lastly, what it means for Dotter to continue to be in this position as a team owner and what the future looks like for one of the most tenured organizations in the Xfinity Series.
KICKIN’ THE TIRES: How would you assess your organization’s 2025 season thus far?
BOBBY DOTTER: It’s been tough. With the No. 07, we’d love to try and get into the top 25 in points. That’s what we at SS-Green Light Racing have been pushing for all year and with some of the races coming up, with the drivers we have, we see that as a realistic goal. But then, with the No. 14 car, we just got off to such a bad start. We blew an engine at Daytona and only got a couple points.
Then, we had Carson Hocevar driving the car at COTA and he was the first car out after somebody spun him and he hit the wall, so we just started out in such a hole that we just really haven’t dug out of yet. I really, really would like to see us get that car into the top 30 before the season is over.
How active are you in the day-to-day operations of the team? Are you more or less involved than you were when the team was first starting out?
I’m much less involved now then when we started SS-Green Light Racing. I used to be very hands on, out there all day long with the guys working and honestly, being older now, I can admit I had a bad habit of micro-managing everyone and I kind of stirred the pot a lot for people. But as it turned out, we got bigger as a team and I ended up losing my office help around that same time, so I ended up transitioning to where I do most of the secretarial work now, dealing with the bills and different things in our office. So I probably spend about 80% of the time in the office now.
I’ll still help with placing decals sometimes and I’ll help with this or that around the shop, but I’ve realized if I can just get people out there that know their jobs, things get done better than when I was out there trying to put my fingers in everybody else’s job.
Taking a trip down memory lane, it was in 2022 that SS-Green Light Racing partnered with Stewart-Haas Racing and Cole Custer, a move that ultimately resulted in the team’s first win. How did that relationship come about?
Joe Graf Jr. was our driver at the time and his father is actually the one that set it up. They felt that to be more successful, we needed an alliance with a winning team. So they bought some cars and paid to be in an alliance with Stewart-Haas. As part of it, just to show the cars run well, Cole agreed to run a few races. Cole won the race in California and as the year went on, we got to do a lot of the simulator work, where Joe would be on the simulator driving the different tracks and our crew chief would go with him and we started making a lot of headway with that.
When we would unload, instead of unloading as a 20th place car, we’d unload and be closer to the top 10. With that said, we still didn’t put together very many good races that year and ultimately at the end of the year, Joe and I both agreed that maybe it was time to try something different. We had been together for three years at that point and just weren’t having the results either of us wanted.
Going back even further, SS-Green Light Racing had its best season as a team in 2019 with Gray Gaulding finishing 13th in points and Ray Black Jr. finishing 16th, with both drivers competing full-time. What are some things you guys are doing behind the scenes to get back to and potentially even surpass that level? Is that a realistic expectation in 2025?
Unfortunately, the competition level is so much higher now than it was then. Back then we could operate on say, a $2 million budget and we could run top 10. Well now the cars running in the top 10 are spending $5 million or $6 million and unfortunately we’re still spending $2 million because that’s the maximum amount of sponsorship I can generate. So until we can get the equipment level back up, it doesn’t matter how good a driver we put in the car because we’re kind of limited.
Is it frustrating to reach the point of maximizing your equipment at that high of a level, just to be forced to watch others enter the sport and spend more money to pass you by?
It just takes a lot of the fun factor out of it that’s for sure because you know you’re doing things as good as back then, and in different given weeks, because we change drivers so often, we’ll have the drivers that can perform, and yet like I said, we’re not contending for top 10s. All of a sudden, we’re running 15th to 25th instead, and in all honesty, that’s a good place to be with the budget we’re on, but it’s still not the top 10.
In what ways does the day-to-day work of the organization differ from a season like 2019 where you had two full-time drivers, to this season where the team has so many different drivers jumping in and out of the car?
You wouldn’t believe how much work it turns into. As far as changing the seats, moving the pedals, moving the steering columns, radiators, radiator hookup, radios. Hookups are on different sides, so you need different wiring and stuff, so it’s all definitely very trying and it causes my guys here at SS-Green Light Racing to have to work a lot harder.
But you know, sometimes you have to look at it like “to make it through the year, we have to at least run X number of races with drivers that bring good sponsorship with them and X number of races maybe with small sponsorship, but with a driver we think can help us showcase our stuff.”
How do you balance going from having a driver in the car who’s there because they bring more sponsors versus having a driver in the car because they possess the ability to maximize your equipment?
They all get the same opportunity from us. They jump from car to car, but we don’t have it set up to where “oh, this is our better car and we’re saving it for these races.” We don’t do that. But it just seems like when we’re changing drivers a lot like we are now, we tear up a lot of cars. And that was the biggest thing when you’re talking about the year we had in 2019 with Gaulding and Black Jr. I know Gray for instance, he ran that whole year and I think he had one accident all year.
So in a situation like that, you’re not fixing race cars every week and it gives you more money to put towards the budget. It gives you more time to try and fine tune your cars and make them better. It was just the perfect scenario.
Do you foresee a future in which SS-Green Light Racing gets back to having just one or two full-time drivers?
Unfortunately it’s not anything I see happening anytime in the near future. But it would be nice, because we’ve had some good ones drive full-time for us in the past. Black Jr., for having very little experience when he came to me, he just incrementally kept getting better. Then we moved up the ladder with him from Trucks to Xfinity, so he was a good one. We talked about Gray a lot. That year with him was phenomenal.
We’ve also had a lot of rookies throughout our time. I mean, Ross Chastain basically started his career with me running trucks. He actually lived in our race shop when he drove for me for the whole summer and look what he’s gone on to achieve, so I mean he’s one you certainly can’t forget.
So if not that, what is your hope for the future of SS-Green Light Racing, then?
I’m not very optimistic, but I’d love to get back to having an affiliation with a bigger team, where maybe they have too many drivers and want to develop a driver through our team, where we could get some knowledge out of them and maybe some newer equipment out of them or something of that nature. I’m always talking and looking for that kind of opportunity, because that’s kind of the only thing I see as far as a way for us to really take a step forward in the near future.
Is there anything in particular you need to do to make that happen or is it simply a matter of circumstance?
It’s not a matter of circumstance as much as you just have to always be talking to the right people. And the sponsorship side of it, we’re very fortunate as a small team. That connection we had with Stewart-Haas that year, to be able to use the simulator with them and fly on their private plane, there were just so many things there that helped make it a more enjoyable year and I just would love to get back to that type of situation again.
Despite all the hardships you and your team have faced, what does it mean to be able to run a team in this series for as long as you have?
I feel really good about that. I’ve been able to get to where I’m the sole owner of SS-Green Light Racing and I don’t have to count on a partner anymore. Where we’re at, we’re able to pay our bills and we’re not fighting to stay open or on the verge of a lockdown like some other teams have been in the past. I’m very lucky to have surrounded myself with some good people who are all just trying to do the best they can.
I’m proud we’re still here, because it would’ve been easy to give up at some point or another. But now, that’s not even a thought anymore.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.