The NASCAR Cup Series heads to Circuit of the Americas (COTA) in Austin, Texas, this weekend for the third race of the regular season.

Kaulig Racing drivers AJ Allmendinger and Ty Dillon finished 12th and 16th, respectively, in Sunday’s race at EchoPark Speedway near Atlanta. Dillon is now 17th in points, and Allmendinger is 18th.

As with all road course races, AJ Allmendinger enters Sunday’s race as one of the favorites. Teammate Ty Dillon has started the season strong and will likely race at the front of the pack as well.

FOX will broadcast the race at 3:30 p.m.Sunday.

CELSIUS: This marks the second of 9 scheduled NASCAR Cup Series races for CELSIUS this season. The brand made its debut at the Daytona 500, where AJ Allmendinger delivered a 19th-place finish.
COTA Cup Experience: In five NASCAR Cup Series starts at COTA, Allmendinger’s best finish is fifth in 2021. He owns one top-five and two top-10s at the world class Circuit of the Americas.
COTA Victories: Two of Allmendinger’s 18 O’Reilly Auto Parts Series victories occurred at Circuit of the Americas with Kaulig Racing in 2022 and 2023.
Season so Far: Allmendinger finished 12th in the most recent NASCAR Cup Series race at EchoPark Speedway in Hampton, Ga. and collected a top-20 in the Daytona 500. He is currently 18th in the NASCAR Cup Series points standings.
AJ at Kaulig Racing: AJ Allmendinger began his 18th full-time season in the NASCAR Cup Series at Daytona International Speedway. It marks his fifth season with Kaulig Racing’s NASCAR Cup Series program.
Career: Allmendinger is a three-time NASCAR Cup Series winner and owns 22 top-five, and 87 top-10 finishes in the division. This year he will make his 500th NASCAR Cup Series start at Sonoma Raceway. He is an 18-time winner in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series.
Crew Chief: Trent Owens joined Kaulig Racing in January 2022. The Darlington, S.C., native became Allmendinger’s NASCAR Cup Series crew chief in 2025. Owens has 20 years of experience in NASCAR and has won in all three of NASCAR’s top series in a crew chief role.
Kaulig Racing: The Matt Kaulig team owns two NASCAR Cup Series victories and 27 NASCAR Xfinity Series victories.

AJ Allmendinger:

What stands out to you about COTA?

“It’s a unique racetrack with a unique blend of high-speed elevation changes and slow-speed corners. You’ve got to get the balance right around all of them. It lends itself to a lot of passing opportunities. It’s put on great racing every time we’ve been there. We want to have a strong showing for CELSIUS and all of our partners on Sunday.”

How were your road course performances last year?

“You know, for us last year, we struggled generally on the road courses. I’ll put a lot of that on me—when Goodyear keeps bringing a soft tire, trying to make it last. You know, I do think there were certain road courses where we didn’t have a lot of speed. Watkins Glen (International) stood out to me. I thought we were tapped out, and we were kind of running on the edge of the top 10. We know we’ve got to get better, and I’ve got to get better in the car to get back to kind of where we were. I think, you know, for me, I’ve studied everything that I can study car-wise, and I’ll continually do it going into the weekend.”

How are you approaching new challenges this season?

“The new situation is that we’re kind of on our own. There’s going to be weeks, I think, we show up and we nail it, and we’ve got a lot of speed, and we’re very competitive, and I think there are weekends when we show up and maybe we miss it, and there’s nothing to lean on except for your old notes. We’re going to make the best of every weekend. We’re getting up to speed, kind of on our own. It’s a new challenge. We’re always going to have internal pressure that we put on ourselves, but I think externally people know the situation. For the first two races, we were just trying to survive to have a shot. Then the season kind of really starts at COTA, where we will see what we’ve got.”

About CELSIUS

CELSIUS is a premium, functional energy drink brand born in fitness and built for active lifestyles. Powered by its LIVE. FIT. GO.™ mantra, CELSIUS delivers refreshing, zero-sugar energy designed to keep people moving — from elite athletes to everyday achievers. CELSIUS® is owned by Celsius Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq: CELH).

Patriot Mobile: Patriot Mobile will make its first appearance on Ty Dillon’s No. 10 this weekend in COTA. Patriot Mobile announced this week it will also join Dillon at the Dover, Michigan and St. Louis events in 2026.
Birthday Boy: Ty Dillon turns 34 on Friday.
Season so Far: Dillon finished 14th in the Daytona 500 and 16th at Atlanta. He is 17th in points.
Last Race in COTA: Dillon has four Cup starts at COTA, finishing 28th last year. He finished 11th there in the 2024 NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series race.
NASCAR Career: Dillon owns a career-best third-place finish at Talladega Superspeedway in the fall 2020 race. He has three truck series wins (Atlanta in 2012, Kentucky and Texas in 2013) and a NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series victory at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2014.
Crew Chief: Andrew Dickeson, 43, a native of Melbourne, Australia, joined Kaulig Racing before the 2025 season after years in Australian racing and as an engineer at Richard Childress Racing.
2025 NASCAR In-Season Challenge: Dillon authored one of the greatest “Cinderella” stories in NASCAR history last year. He entered the 32-driver bracket as the No. 32 seed — the lowest possible — and went on a miraculous run, defeating Denny Hamlin, Brad Keselowski, Alex Bowman and John Hunter Nemechek before falling to Ty Gibbs in the championship round, just short of the $1 million prize. Throughout the competition on social media, Dillon jokingly called out fans of the drivers he beat, posting: “I beat your favorite driver.”
The 2026 NASCAR In-Season Tournament seeds lock in after the June 14 race at Pocono Raceway, with competition featuring the TNT-broadcast races at Sonoma, Chicagoland, Atlanta, North Wilkesboro and Indianapolis.

Ty Dillon:

What is the biggest difference between the No. 10 team this season?

“I think for one thing, it’s not our first year working together, and for me, that’s a big thing. It’s probably been seven years since I showed up to Daytona and didn’t have to learn a new crew chief, a new team, and a whole new system. This year, we’re able to work on notes and improve on last year’s work. Our whole team’s pretty much the same, other than maybe one or two people. So that’s exciting for me. I think we will improve a lot just based on our knowledge of each other, and going back to the places we now have notebooks on. So we know our weaknesses, we’ve talked about them, and we’re going to work on them this year. If we improve those, we believe we’ll see a massive jump in points there. And just minimizing mistakes as a team, on pit road, as a driver, penalties, and things that we know we are better than. I think if we manage that this year, we’re going to do a lot of great things. We showed a lot in that in-season challenge when we’re performing at our best, where we should be, and the teams that we should be beating. I think that’s going to be our standard this year, and hopefully we carry it all through the year.”

What is your COTA Strategy?

“I have one of the greatest road course racers in NASCAR history as a teammate in AJ Allmendinger, so my plan is to just follow and learn from him, and we will be fine.”

Kaulig Racing PR