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<\/p>\nFord lost the Haas Factory Team to Chevrolet for 2026, but the Blue Oval is getting a new organization in the O\u2019Reilly Auto Parts Series (formerly Xfinity) to replace them thanks to second-generation racer Chris Hettinger.<\/p>\n
In 2026, Hettinger Racing will field the No. 5 Ford Mustang Dark Horse and receive technical support from Ford Racing. Roush Yates Engines will be the team\u2019s engine supplier. Hettinger has acquired the owner points from the No. 70 team of Cope Family Racing. That guarantees his entry a starting position in the Feb. 14 season-opening United Rentals 300 at Daytona International Speedway. <\/p>\n
Related Story<\/p>\n
Veteran crew chief Joe Williams Jr. will oversee all competition aspects for the new team. He was at Alpha Prime Racing during the 2025 season where he helped driver Parker Retzlaff to a career-best second place finish at Rockingham (N.C.) Speedway.<\/p>\n
The team\u2019s driver and partnership plans for 2026 will be announced before the NASCAR O\u2019Reilly Auto Parts Series open test Jan. 27-28 at Rockingham. <\/p>\n
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Jim Fluharty<\/p>\n
Hettinger began his racing career as a driver, winning in Late Models and open-wheel Midgets before becoming a full-time team owner. The Dryden, Michigan, native has been a fixture in Late Models, fielding multiple entries on the zMAX CARS Tour. The CARS Tour is owned by Dale Earnhardt Jr., Justin Marks, Jeff Burton and Kevin Harvick and is a touring series for Late Models and Pro Late Models. <\/p>\n
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A North Carolina native, Deb Williams is an award-winning motorsports journalist who is in her fourth decade covering auto racing. In addition to covering the sport for United Press International, she has written motorsports articles for several newspapers, magazines and websites including espnW.com<\/a>, USA Today, and The Charlotte Observer. Her awards include the American Motorsports Media Award of Excellence, two-time National Motorsports Press Association writer of the year, and two-time recipient of the Russ Catlin award. She also has won an award in the North Carolina Press Association\u2019s sports feature category.\u00a0 During her career, Deb has been managing editor of GT Motorsports magazine and was with Winston Cup Scene and NASCAR Winston Cup Scene for 18 years, serving as the publication\u2019s editor for 10 years. In 2024 she was inducted into the NMPA Hall of Fame.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ford lost the Haas Factory Team to Chevrolet for 2026, but the Blue Oval is getting a new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364487,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,782,156394,784,1642,634,156393,82],"class_list":["post-364486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-content-type-news","tag-contentid-790a5017-f48a-45ab-930a-c52423c8b8d1","tag-displaytype-standard-article","tag-locale-us","tag-nascar","tag-shorttitle-ford-lands-new-oreilly-series-team-for-2026","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364486","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=364486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}