A 2011 ARCA title, Truck and Xfinity results built around the Richard Childress Racing family, and a full-time Cup return with Kaulig Racing in 2025.
Ty Dillon is a NASCAR driver who won the 2011 ARCA Racing Series championship and now races full-time in the Cup Series for Kaulig Racing. He also drove in the Truck Series, won an Xfinity race at Indianapolis in 2014 and finished third at Talladega in 2020, his best Cup result.
Ty Dillon is an American stock car driver whose career has been closely tied to Richard Childress Racing. He won the ARCA Racing Series championship in 2011 while still a teenager, later finished second in the Truck Series standings and won an Xfinity Series race at Indianapolis. He returned to full-time Cup racing in 2025 after several seasons spent across different teams.
Dillon's grandfather, Richard Childress, owns RCR, and his father, Mike Dillon, is the team's general manager and a retired NASCAR driver. His older brother Austin drives RCR's No. 3 Cup car full-time, and Ty is the younger of the two. That family connection shaped the early part of his career, although he has also raced for several teams outside the RCR system.
Where did Ty Dillon's racing career begin?
Dillon began in go-karts and Bandoleros, then moved up to the K&N Pro Series East in 2009. He finished 13th in the 2010 standings and won at Gresham Motorsports Park that August. The same year he also won twice from three ARCA starts, which set up his full ARCA season in 2011.
Dillon's 2011 ARCA season was his first full campaign in the series. He won seven races and beat Chris Buescher by 340 points to take the championship, although he lost the rookie-of-the-year award to Buescher by two points. Dillon was nineteen years, seven months and nineteen days old when he won, which made him the youngest ARCA champion until Ty Gibbs took the 2021 title at nineteen years, zero months and nineteen days.
A teenage ARCA champion who spent years in the Childress orbit before finding a full-time Cup seat again.
How did Dillon perform in the Truck Series?
Dillon made his Truck debut in 2011, finishing 18th at Kentucky Speedway, and ran the full 2012 schedule for RCR. He finished second at Martinsville that year, his best Truck result, and won his first race at Atlanta on August 31. He won again at Kentucky in June 2013 and was runner-up in the 2013 standings to Matt Crafton.
The 2013 season was his strongest in the series. In late August he led the final lap of the Canadian race against seventeen-year-old rookie Chase Elliott, then made contact in the final turn, hit the tire barrier and watched Elliott win. He also won the 100th race for a No. 3 car or truck in NASCAR at Texas, and he was named Most Popular Driver at the season-ending awards banquet.
After 2013 his Truck starts became occasional. He finished fifth at the 2014 Mudsummer Classic at Eldora Speedway and seventh in the season finale for NTS Motorsports. In 2015 he drove three races for GMS Racing and recorded two top-tens, and in 2017 he returned to finish fifth at Martinsville for MDM Motorsports.
In December 2023 Rackley W.A.R. announced that he would run the No. 25 truck full-time in 2024, his first full season in the series since 2013. He stepped out before the Kansas race in favour of Dawson Sutton and took on a coaching and mentoring role. In February 2026 Kaulig Racing gave him a one-off all-star seat in the No. 25 Ram 1500 at Atlanta.
What did Dillon achieve in the Xfinity Series?
Dillon debuted in the Xfinity Series at Dover in June 2012 and moved to the series full-time in 2014, driving RCR's No. 3 Chevrolet in place of his brother. He won at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on July 26, 2014, holding off Kyle Busch on the final restart, and finished second to Chase Elliott in the 2014 rookie standings.
That first full-time year also brought a run of poles, at Las Vegas, Kentucky and Kansas. In 2015 he finished third in the final points standings, with 25 top-ten finishes and twelve top-fives, both career highs at that point. He reached the Chase in 2016 but was eliminated after a close battle with Justin Allgaier.
In 2016 he also won the $100,000 Dash 4 Cash bonus at Richmond by finishing second, after the other three qualifiers crashed out of the same late wreck. He ended that season fifth in points with five second-place finishes. His schedule thinned out afterwards: he ran 27 races in 2017 and recorded sixteen top-tens, then made only a few starts in 2018 and none in 2019 or 2020.
In January 2021 Joe Gibbs Racing announced a part-time seat for him in its No. 54 Toyota, and he joined Our Motorsports for the Charlotte race that May.
How did Dillon's Cup Series career develop?
Dillon made his Cup debut in July 2014 at Atlanta Motor Speedway, qualifying 29th and finishing 25th in a Hillman-Circle Sport car run in partnership with RCR. He ran full-time for Germain Racing from 2017 to 2020. His best results there were sixth at Daytona in 2018 and third at Talladega in 2020, a career-best finish.
His early Cup starts came in a handful of races in 2014 and 2015, including a Daytona 500 entry in the No. 33 that RCR announced in December 2014. In 2016 he shared the No. 95 with Michael McDowell at Circle Sport-Leavine Family Racing. He also substituted for an injured Tony Stewart in the No. 14, finishing seventh at Talladega, a result credited to Stewart because he had started the race. At Pocono that year he led the first three laps of his Cup career.
Germain announced him in November 2016 to replace Casey Mears in the No. 13 GEICO Chevrolet. The 2017 season began with a crash in the Daytona 500, but he finished 15th at Atlanta the following week and then posted a career-best thirteenth at Talladega after avoiding the big wreck. At Dover he led 27 laps before finishing fourteenth. He finished the season 24th in points after a strong second half.
The 2018 season started slowly, but Dillon managed to avoid several large accidents and took sixth in the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona. It was his first Cup top-ten in 71 starts. In 2019 he claimed another sixth at Daytona, won his first ever stage at Bristol by holding off Clint Bowyer, and finished fourth at the rain-shortened July race at Daytona, his first Cup top-five. Along with Joey Logano, he was running at the finish of every race that year, and he ended 2019 24th in points.
Germain closed after the 2020 season, when GEICO ended its sponsorship. The team's charter went to 23XI Racing, which was led by Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin. In January 2021 Gaunt Brothers Racing announced him for the Daytona 500 in the No. 96 Toyota, but he finished sixth in the first Duel and missed the race.
In 2022 he drove for GMS Racing, which by then had combined with Richard Petty Motorsports as Petty GMS. His car was the No. 42, alongside Erik Jones in the No. 43, and he finished 29th in the points. In 2023 Spire Motorsports ran him in the No. 77, but he failed to score a top-ten finish, placed in the top 20 only five times and finished 32nd, last among the full-time drivers. Spire replaced him with Carson Hocevar for 2024.
His 2024 and 2025 seasons were patchier. Kaulig Racing gave him a five-race deal in its No. 16 starting at Richmond in the spring, and he drove for Team AmeriVet at the Coca-Cola 600 in May. At the Brickyard 400 in July he drove Richard Childress Racing's No. 33 for the first time since 2015, starting 22nd and finishing 19th. He then returned full-time for 2025 in the renumbered No. 10 for Kaulig, replacing Daniel Hemric.
What does Dillon's career look like across the series?
Dillon's record spans the Cup, Xfinity and Truck Series, as well as ARCA and the K&N ranks. His most important results are the 2011 ARCA championship, the 2014 Xfinity win at Indianapolis, second in the 2013 Truck standings and a career-best third at Talladega in 2020. The table below sets out his main seasons and results in each series.
| Series | Seasons | Main result |
|---|---|---|
| K&N Pro Series East | 2009 to 2010 | 13th in 2010 points; one win at Gresham Motorsports Park |
| ARCA Racing Series | 2010 to 2011 | Champion in 2011 with seven wins |
| Craftsman Truck Series | 2011 to 2026 | Second in 2013 points; second at Martinsville in 2012 |
| Xfinity Series | 2012 to 2021 | Win at Indianapolis in 2014; third in 2015 points |
| Cup Series | 2014 to 2026 | Third at Talladega in 2020, a career best |
| Trans-Am Series | 2014 | Fourth at Road America in a TA2 Camaro |
Where does Ty Dillon race now?
Dillon races full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series for Kaulig Racing, driving the No. 10 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1. He also drives part-time in the Craftsman Truck Series for the same team, in the No. 25 Ram 1500. His Cup return from 2025 has kept him in the sport's top division.
The move brought him back to a regular Cup schedule after several seasons of short-term rides. Earlier in his career he had also competed in the Trans-Am Series, making his debut at Road America in 2014 for Miller Racing. He started sixth in the No. 12 TA2 Chevy Camaro and finished fourth.
Away from the car, Dillon co-owned the sports management agency Team Dillon Management with his brother Austin. He left in December 2019 to join KHI Management, the agency linked to Kevin Harvick. He also made a cameo in the 2019 film Stuber and documented his racing life in a YouTube series called The Ride.
