The Arrow McLaren team has dedicated this weekend’s NTT IndyCar Series race in Toronto to its late spotter Bob Jeffrey, who died of cancer on Thursday.
Within the spotter community, Jeffrey was revered as one of the best, whose extended NASCAR career saw him steer everyone from Dale Jarrett to Tony Stewart to Danica Patrick from high atop Cup tracks, and in IndyCar, where he was an integral part of Josef Newgarden’s championship program at Team Penske before joining Arrow McLaren to guide Pato O’Ward.
— Racer —
AND: Bob Jeffrey, who as a spotter won NASCAR Cup Series championships with Dale Jarrett and Tony Stewart, assisted in Danica Patrick’s 2018 Indianapolis 500 sendoff and most recently served as Pato O’Ward’s spotter the past two seasons, died Thursday after a battle with cancer.
“My spotter passed away today. Bobster, thank you for being a part of my journey,” O’Ward wrote on Instagram Thursday evening. “I’m so glad I had a chance to say my goodbyes this morning. I know I’ll have an angel riding alongside me forever.
After serving as a mechanic and tire changer for various teams in NASCAR early in his career, Jeffrey jumped up to the spotters’ stand to serve as the eyes in the sky for legendary driver Dale Jarrett during the driver’s prime, including Jarrett’s lone Cup title in 1999, a four-win season that included Jarrett’s second of two Brickyard 400 victories.
Jeffrey continued working with Jarrett through the driver’s retirement in 2008 before joining Tony Stewart as the driver joined longtime NASCAR owner Gene Haas to form the team now known as Stewart-Haas Racing. Shortly after Stewart and Jeffrey joined SHR in 2009, they landed the 2011 Cup championship — the third for Stewart and second for Jeffrey in a playoff run where the No. 14 Chevy won five of the final 10 races of the year.
After continuing to assist Stewart through the end of his Cup career that came to a close in 2016, Jeffrey joined forces with SHR driver Danica Patrick, who retired from full-time NASCAR racing in 2017 and then ran both the Daytona 500 and Indy 500. It was that edition of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing where Jeffrey first got acquainted in the IndyCar world — a fortuitous introduction that would lead his jobs for the final six years of his career.