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It’s NASCAR’s worst-kept secret. So much so that the media has given up on trying to keep it a secret, even if the team in question is still saying “Woah…hold on a minute!”
Dodge is coming back to Cup in 2027.
Kaulig Racing’s #10 and #16 cars will switch from Chevrolet to Dodge when they hit the track for the 2027 Daytona 500. Earlier this week, it was announced without being announced that for the first year, they will get their engine from ECR Engines, the engine building program for Richard Childress Racing that has some history/connection to Dale Earnhardt, Inc. (The details are fuzzy but basically ECR really stands for Earnhardt Childress Racing, even if they’re not allowed to call themselves that.)
I’m sure that for many, this is very exciting news. Sure, it will be great to have another manufacturer in the Cup Series to join Chevrolet, Ford, and Toyota. For Dodge, this might certainly seem like a lucrative chance to join in the practice of “Win on Sunday. Sell on Monday.”
Done right, this is a win-win situation.
Unfortunately, having Dodge come to the Cup Series, a year after returning to the Craftsman Truck Series with five trucks, with Kaulig Racing, is another step in the wrong direction.
This is not a knock against Kaulig Racing. I like Kaulig Racing. I was a huge fan of them when they basically came out of nowhere to run with the JGRs and JR Motorsports of the O’Reilly Auto Part Series in 2021. A.J. Allmendinger, Jeb Burton, and Justin Haley were dominant and seemed to genuinely enjoy racing with each other. Kaulig can’t be faulted for wanting to see what they can accomplish in the Cup Series. It’d be like a hitter consistently hitting .300 with 50 home runs in Triple-A baseball. Eventually, you want to know what you can do in the majors.
The problem is that Kaulig seemed to prioritize their Cup program at the expense of their O’Reilly Series program. This is not to say that there hasn’t been success in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, with several wins each season between 2021 and 2024. Chris Rice proclaimed that they were “going trophy-hunting” in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series. Most of the wins were on road courses. Even the oval wins came with Cup drivers (A.J. Allmendinger and Kyle Larson) behind the wheel. Their regular O’Reilly Auto Parts Series drivers seemed to fade into the background in terms of competing for wins and championships.
Instead of taking a step back, cut their Cup program back to one car, and putting additional resources back into the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series to develop drivers for an eventual Cup ride, Kaulig switched gears. They shuttered their O’Reilly program and instead answered Dodge’s call to be part of the manufacturer’s return to NASCAR in the Truck Series.
When I first heard that Dodge was returning to NASCAR and in the Truck Series, I applauded the idea. Start small. A couple of truck teams to get a good base to work from over the next few seasons.
Imagine my surprise when I learned that Kaulig, struggling with the O’Reilly and Cup Series teams that I had, would field FIVE trucks to start off. I can’t say I’m surprised with the results or lack thereof during the 2026 season. Sure, they’ve had decent results. The biggest headlines they’ve made is with their #25 “Free Agent” truck with Tony Stewart, Clint Bowyer, Jamie McMurray, Elliott Sadler, Regan Smith, and Ryan Newman (among others) climbing back behind a NASCAR wheel. AJ Allmendinger finished 6th at Watkins Glen.
I can’t help but wonder just how well the Dodge Truck program with Kaulig would have fared if they’d taken it a bit slower. For that matter, even if they had to continue with the five truck program, it might have been a better move to take 2027 and build on what they accomplished in 2026. (So far this season: 1 Top 5, 17 Top 10s, and 24 laps led, 20 of which were by Justin Haley at the season-opener at Daytona.)
I understand the way our society works, and NASCAR is no different. Sesame Street and MTV diminished our attention spans. The Internet and social media destroyed our patience. The Doors may have sang “We want the world and we want it now” back in the 1960s but it is even more relevant today. No NASCAR team is going to lay out a five year plan to improve and then move from ARCA to Trucks to the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series and then finally to Cup. It’s the same with the individual drivers. Look at Ty Gibbs, who made his first start in the Daytona 500 two years after starting his first full season in ARCA. It’s gotta be now and then look for excuses later.
And so it should come as no surprise that, despite a lack of results in their first year in the Truck Series, Dodge should vault over the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series and decide to run two Cup programs.
What will make it even more difficult is that, as stated earlier, that they will be getting their engines from ECR whose expertise resides in creating Chevy engines. If my Dad were here, I’d rely on his knowledge as to how different Dodge and Chevy engines might be. Google tells me the Truck engines are identical. If the same hold true for Cup, perhaps that’s one hurdle the Dodge Cup cars won’t have to overcome. However, one could foresee a challenge, as it were, for an engine building program well-versed in Chevy engines to seamlessly introduce a program for a different manufacturer if there are inconsistencies between the two.
One other thing about our society that will most likely hold true in NASCAR: people want results and success immediately. I’m not saying Dodge will pull out if Kaulig doesn’t win the 2027 Daytona 500 but if (or rather when) Dodge comes to Cup in 2027, the powers-that-be on the manufacturer side of things are going to demand more than a single Top 5 and a dozen laps led on the biggest stage in NASCAR and they’re going to demand it pretty quickly.
This is not a complete condemnation of Dodge or Kaulig, two entities I would like to see succeed in NASCAR for the betterment of the sport as a whole. Instead, I believe that, by the time we get to Homestead in 2027, there may be a pause to contemplate just how much more overall success both team and manufacturer might have had if they’d taken things a little slower.
This might be a situation of wanting too much too soon to the detriment of Dodge and Kaulig’s effort in Cup.
