Founded in 2016 around Blake Koch and a LeafFilter sponsorship, Kaulig Racing won its first Cup race in 2021 and has now moved into a five-truck Ram programme.
Kaulig Racing is a NASCAR team owned by Matt Kaulig that started in 2016 in the Xfinity Series. It competes in the Cup Series with the No. 10 and No. 16 cars, won its first Cup race in 2021 and has planned a five-truck Ram programme for 2026.
Kaulig Racing is an American professional stock car team that competes in the NASCAR Cup Series and the Craftsman Truck Series. Owned by Matt Kaulig, who also owns the team's sponsor LeafFilter, it began as an Xfinity Series operation in 2016 and has grown into a two-car Cup team with a five-truck Ram programme.
How did Kaulig Racing start?
The team grew out of LeafFilter's sponsorship of Blake Koch. Koch and LeafFilter had planned to re-sign with TriStar Motorsports for 2016, but Matt Kaulig decided during the 2015 offseason to start his own team and brought Koch with him in the No. 11 Chevrolet. Chris Rice, a long-time NASCAR crew chief, was hired as the general manager and crew chief.
Kaulig formed a technical alliance with Richard Childress Racing for 2016 and used the owner's points of TriStar's former No. 8 team. In the debut race at Daytona, Koch finished 9th, and the team later reached the new Xfinity Chase, finishing seventh in points, a career best for Koch.
An owner-driven team that moved from an Xfinity start in 2016 to Cup wins and a factory-backed Ram truck programme.
How did the Xfinity Series years shape the team?
The team's Xfinity operation ran from 2016 until the company announced in October 2025 that it would pause the programme to focus on the Cup and Truck series. In that time it won races with several drivers, and its base moved onto the Richard Childress Racing campus in Welcome, North Carolina, after an earlier spell at the NTS Motorsports facility.
Ross Chastain, who was in the No. 10 full-time in 2020, finished seventh in the final standings with five runner-up finishes and 27 top-10s, the most in the series that year. Jeb Burton won at Talladega in April 2021 after taking the lead from his cousin Harrison Burton, giving the No. 10 its second career win.
| Date | Car and driver | Milestone |
|---|---|---|
| 2016 | No. 11, Blake Koch | Seventh in points, a career best |
| 2020 | No. 16, Justin Haley | Cup debut at the Daytona 500, fastest qualifier among non-charter teams |
| August 2021 | No. 16, A. J. Allmendinger | First Cup win, Indianapolis road course, in the seventh start |
| 2023 | No. 16, A. J. Allmendinger | Win at the Charlotte Roval without making the playoffs |
| 2025 | No. 16, A. J. Allmendinger | 26th in points, two top-fives, one pole |
| 2026 | Five Ram trucks | Truck programme begins with up to five Ram trucks |
How did the Cup team take shape from 2020?
Kaulig's first Cup season began with Justin Haley in the No. 16 at the 2020 Daytona 500. He posted the fastest qualifying speed of all the non-charter teams, 190.018 mph, and made the field in 31st. The team then cut back its plans because of the pandemic and planned to run the superspeedway and road course races in 2021.
On 28 April 2021 Matt Kaulig said on SiriusXM Radio that the team would race full-time in the 2022 season. On 18 June the team bought two charters from Spire Motorsports, and Haley was set to drive full-time in 2022. On 15 August Allmendinger gave the team its first Cup win at the Indianapolis road course, in only the seventh Cup start for Kaulig.
Who drove the No. 16 car in 2022?
The No. 16 line-up for 2022 was announced in December 2021 with Daniel Hemric and Noah Gragson joining A. J. Allmendinger. Hemric was scheduled for eight races, Gragson for 14 and Allmendinger for 16, including the Clash and the All-Star Race. Gragson drove only ten races, as he spent five of them in a Hendrick Motorsports car while Alex Bowman recovered from injury.
Allmendinger ended up driving 18 races in the No. 16 that season. In May the crew chief, Matt Swiderski, drew a four-race suspension when a wheel came loose at Dover.
What happened with A. J. Allmendinger's Cup career?
Allmendinger returned to the Cup Series full-time in 2023, which was his first full-time Cup season since 2018. He did not make the playoffs, but he won at the Charlotte Roval. He then moved to a full-time Xfinity schedule in 2024 while running a part-time Cup programme.
The 2024 Cup season used several drivers. Allmendinger remained in the car part-time, and the team's Xfinity drivers Josh Williams and Shane van Gisbergen also made starts. Derek Kraus ran six races from Las Vegas, and Ty Dillon drove five races from Richmond. Crew chief Travis Mack left in October, and Darian Grubb took over at Las Vegas.
Kaulig announced in August 2024 that Allmendinger would return full-time to the No. 16 for 2025. He started that year with a blown engine in the Daytona 500, finished 41st, and closed the season 26th in the standings with two top-five results, seven top-10s and one pole. He finished 19th in the 2026 Daytona 500 and scored his first top 10 of the season at Austin. At Sonoma he made his 500th career start.
Who drove the No. 10 car with Ty Dillon?
Ty Dillon was announced as the driver of Kaulig's second Cup entry in 2025, running the No. 10. He finished 14th in the 2025 Daytona 500 and then took part in the inaugural NASCAR In-Season Challenge. Starting as the No. 32 seed, he finished eighth at Atlanta after beating No. 1 seed Denny Hamlin, and he reached the final at the Brickyard 400, where Ty Gibbs won the US$1 million prize. Dillon remained with the team in 2026 and again finished 14th at the Daytona 500.
How did the No. 13 and No. 31 entries run?
From 2023 to 2025 Kaulig ran a part-time third car. Chandler Smith drove five races starting with the Daytona 500, sponsored by Quick Tie. He finished 18th in Duel 1 at the 2023 Duels, which kept him out of the 500, but he made his Cup debut at Richmond and finished 17th. Jonathan Davenport made his Cup debut at the Food City Dirt Race and finished 36th.
Justin Haley drove the No. 31 in 2022 and 2023 after the team gave the No. 16 to Allmendinger. Haley finished 23rd at the 2022 Daytona 500, and the car's crew chief, Trent Owens, was suspended for four races after a tyre and wheel came off. In March 2023 an L2 penalty for unapproved hood louvers at Phoenix cost the team 100 driver and owner points and 10 playoff points. On 5 April an appeals panel cut the points deduction to 75, and on 19 April the Final Appeals Officer rescinded all points deductions. Haley left the team in July 2023 to sign with Rick Ware Racing.
Daniel Hemric was named for the No. 31 in September 2023, marking his first return to full-time Cup racing since his 2019 Rookie of the Year season.
What did the Xfinity programme deliver?
In 2019 Kaulig ran a third car in the Xfinity Series, with Ross Chastain driving the No. 16 at Daytona and winning the team's first race there. The No. 10 car also ran A. J. Allmendinger for five races, although he was disqualified at Daytona after finishing third and again at Watkins Glen after a second-place finish. He won at the Charlotte Roval for the team's second win of 2019.
The No. 11 and No. 16 cars also changed hands often in later years. Josh Williams drove the No. 11 in 2024 and 2025 until the team parted ways with him on 30 July 2025, after 21 races. Carson Hocevar replaced him at Iowa, and Among the other drivers that season were Michael McDowell, Justin Haley, Will Brown, Daniel Hemric and Brenden Queen. Christian Eckes was announced for the No. 16 in 2025, replacing Allmendinger, who was returning to the Cup Series.
Allmendinger's full-time Xfinity years were the team's strongest, and he took back-to-back regular-season championships in 2021 and 2022. In 2021 he won at Las Vegas, Mid-Ohio, Michigan and Bristol, clinched the regular-season championship and finished fourth in the final standings. In 2022 he won four races, took back-to-back wins at Talladega and the Charlotte Roval, and finished fifth in points. Chandler Smith scored his first Xfinity win at Richmond in 2023, and Shane van Gisbergen won two races in a row at Portland and Sonoma in 2024 before moving to the Cup Series with Trackhouse.
What is the Ram truck programme?
On 23 August 2025 Kaulig said it would run Ram trucks in the Craftsman Truck Series in 2026, with as many as five entries and the No. 10 among them. It was the first time since 2012 that a factory-supported team would carry the Ram badge in NASCAR. Brenden Queen, the 2025 ARCA Menards Series champion, signed in October, and Justin Haley and Daniel Dye joined the Ram roster later that month.
Ram also created a Free Agent Program for the No. 25 truck, with drivers eligible for a prize based on their track performance. The programme drew names such as Tony Stewart, Ty Dillon, Corey LaJoie, Clint Bowyer, Jamie McMurray and Travis Pastrana, and Carson Ferguson, the runner-up in the Race for the Seat competition, drove the truck at Bristol, Martinsville and Nashville.
Kaulig launched the reality competition Race for the Seat in January 2026 to choose its final truck driver. Fifteen young drivers competed, and Mini Tyrrell won the full-time ride in the No. 14 truck. The No. 10 truck was announced as a show car before Dye was assigned to it, but NASCAR and Kaulig suspended him in March 2026 over remarks about an IndyCar driver. He was released at the end of March, and Corey LaJoie drove the No. 10 for the rest of the season.
What is the legacy of Kaulig Racing?
Kaulig Racing has grown from a 2016 Xfinity start into a two-series operation backed by its owner's sponsor and a factory-supported truck programme. Its first Cup win came in 2021, and its drivers have included Blake Koch, Justin Haley, A. J. Allmendinger and Ty Dillon.
The team's Xfinity years also produced back-to-back regular-season titles for Allmendinger.
The team's growth shows how an owner-driven operation can move from one series to several, while still relying on a small core of drivers and sponsors to keep cars in the field.
