With Ram Trucks set to return to NASCAR in 2026 in the Craftsman Truck Series to compete against Chevrolet, Ford, and Toyota, Kaulig Racing opted to join the Truck Series full-time with a five-truck program, partnering with Ram to user in the new era for the manufacturer that initially ended its NASCAR factory support in 2012.<\/p>\n
The team’s driver lineup has slowly but surely been coming together<\/a>. Former Kaulig Racing Xfinity Series and Cup Series driver Justin Haley is set to reunite with the team, and he is set to join Daniel Dye, who competed for the organization’s Xfintiy Series team this year, and 2025 ARCA Menards Series champion Brenden “Butterbean” Queen.<\/p>\n But this decision to partner with Ram and enter the Truck Series, especially with five race teams, led to another tough decision for Matt Kaulig’s team, one that was surprising yet inevitable<\/a>.<\/p>\n Kaulig Racing will no longer compete in the Xfinity Series (O’Reilly Auto Parts Series) in 2026.<\/p>\n “It\u2019s bittersweet, man,” A.J. Allmendinger told Beyond the Flag<\/a> in an interview made possible by CELSIUS<\/a>.<\/p>\n Allmendinger won the regular season championship for the team in 2021 and 2022 and was responsible for 16 of the team’s 27 victories, all since 2019. He made it to the Championship 4 in both 2021 and 2024.<\/p>\n “It\u2019s kind of a necessary evil,” he admitted. “There\u2019s no way to do three series right now and be at your best in all of them. A lot of our Xfinity guys are moving to the Truck side. Even though we\u2019re taking away three Xfinity teams, we\u2019re adding five Truck teams. That\u2019s a lot of people to hire.”<\/p>\n Kaulig Racing plan to continue their Cup Series program in 2026, with Allmendinger set to return for another year behind the wheel of the No. 16 Chevrolet. Ty Dillon is also expected to return to the No. 10 Chevrolet.<\/p>\n “It\u2019s bittersweet because that\u2019s been the bread and butter of Kaulig Racing,” Allmendinger continued. “The memories, the wins, getting to the Championship 4, those are special. There are so many people who\u2019ve been there since the start, the \u2018OGs\u2019.”<\/p>\n However, he hinted the departure may not be final.<\/p>\n “It\u2019s sad, but it\u2019s a pause,” he said. “I\u2019d be shocked if it doesn\u2019t come back at some point.”<\/p>\n When Allmendinger ran full-time for Kaulig Racing in the Cup Series back in 2023, he still ran select races for the team’s Xfinity Series program. And when he ran full-time again in the Xfinity Series in 2024, he ran select races at the Cup level.<\/p>\n In 2025, he focused squarely on his 36-race Cup Series schedule.<\/p>\n “It\u2019s made my body feel a little bit better for sure,” he said. “Sure, I\u2019ve missed some road course races [in Xfinity], but being able to just focus on the Cup car \u2013 studying during the week, mentally preparing to unload in practice \u2013 that\u2019s been helpful.”<\/p>\n With two Kaulig Racing trucks still without drivers for 2026, Allmendinger isn’t ruling out a return to the Truck Series, where he’s competed in just one race since 2008. And perhaps that admission is a hint that the team might well rotate drivers in and out of one or both of those remaining entries.<\/p>\n “I\u2019ve enjoyed just focusing on one thing,” Allmendinger said of the 2025 Cup Series season, which he finished 24th in the point standings. “Next year, with Dodge and Ram coming in and us doing Trucks, I don\u2019t know what my schedule will look like, but even then, it won\u2019t be a lot. The Cup side is the focus. … we’ve had good speed in practice most weeks.”<\/p>\n He is looking forward to running back-to-back full Cup Series seasons for the first time since his time at JTG Daugherty Racing wrapped up in 2018.<\/p>\n “Yeah, it\u2019ll be a big deal,” he said. “With the Next Gen cars, the rules can always change, but I feel like the cars will stay fairly close. Chevy will have a new body next year. Hopefully that\u2019ll help us competitively versus Ford and Toyota, who\u2019ve both had newer bodies recently.<\/p>\n “It\u2019ll be big to be back in the car. The No. 16 group is kind of staying the same. We\u2019re adding some people since our program will look a little different; we\u2019ll be doing more things on our own. There\u2019ll be weekends we might miss it, but that\u2019s part of life.<\/p>\n “Working again with my crew chief, Trent Owens, I love our relationship. We\u2019ve even been golfing a lot. I\u2019m looking forward to next year, but we do need that offseason break first.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With Ram Trucks set to return to NASCAR in 2026 in the Craftsman Truck Series to compete against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272056,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-272055","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nascar","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}