Josh Berry may finally be getting a break – or not. For most of his career, Berry has been better than the cars he drives, the Wood brothers Ford being the latest example. Denny Hamlin couldn’t win in that car, and neither could anybody else.
But now, it looks like Berry, who will be out of a job next year, may have found a new home – Kaulig Racing. While Kaulig is an afterthought in the Cup series right now, it won’t be next season because Dodge is re-joining NASCAR and has chosen Kaulig to be its flagship team.
If Dodge is successful in getting its Challenger body approved, and it is making good progress on that front, and is able to develop a spec engine to go with it, which is more difficult, then we could see a Dodge in the 2027 Daytona 500 for the first time since 2012.
Already, Stellantis, which owns both Ram trucks and Dodge, has partnered with Kaulig to put five Ram trucks on the track this season. Ram is providing some financial aid, mostly parts and pieces, for the truck operation with Kaulig getting additional sponsors to help out with costs, which are much less than fielding a Cup team.
That’s because all trucks, regardless of manufacturer, use the same engine, which is factory built by Ilmor. Cup cars have hand built engines developed by each manufacturer to ensure maximum performance. Toyota, Ford and Chevy provide them for their teams, who fine tune them before each race.
As for Dodge, Kaulig seems an unlikely choice to build a program around. It is a small, nondescript team with 55 employees which has never been competitive in the cup series, although Kaulig officials say they will add more engineers and technology and grow the workforce as Dodge expands its Cup program.
According to Kaulig officials, their goals and aspirations coincided with what Dodge was looking for and Kaulig saw the chance to become a primary partner with a major manufacturer as an opportunity to improve its Cup program.
It currently has a shop on the RCR complex in Welcome, N.C., and a relationship with Chevy through RCR, although it gets very little corporate help.
Eventually, Kaulig has plans to move off the RCR complex into an independent facility and it will undoubtedly sever its relationship with Chevy to concentrate all its efforts on Dodge.
Right now, Kaulig is keeping its Cup operations with RCR separate from its Ram deal in the truck series. At least initially, it will continue to field two cars in the Cup series, one driven by A.J. Allmendinger, a 44-year-old veteran who is a poor man’s Shane van Gisbergen on road courses – he has three road course wins – and the other driven by, well that’s a good question.
Right now, it’s Ty Dillon, but two things about Dillon. First, he has had a remarkably unspectacular career. This season, he has no wins, no top fives, no top 10s and has led just three laps.
More importantly, he is Richard Childress’s grand son, which shouts Chevy loud and clear and means he will almost certainly be replaced once Kaulig’s switch from Chevy to Dodge is complete.
And that’s where Berry comes in. He is an experienced driver who could give excellent feedback as Kaulig develops the Dodge program, having proven himself as a substitute driver for both Bill Elliott and Alex Bowman at Hendrick.
And while the quality of Kaulig’s operation remains suspect, if it is able to hire the right people for the right jobs and given technical support from Dodge, maybe we’ll see a breakthrough here – for Dodge and Berry.
There’s no question Dodge wants to do this and there’s no question it wants to put a competitive car on the track as quickly as it can. And there’s no question that given a competitive car, Berry can be very competitive. So maybe this works out. For both of them.
NASCAR NOTES
Three most likely winners at Chicago: 1-Denny Hamlin, 2-Tyler Reddick, 3-Kyle Larson. Last year’s winner at Chicago: No race last year.
Last week’s Old Guy Sport Sonoma picks: 1-Shane van Gisbergen, 2-Tyler Reddick, 3-Ty Gibbs. Sonoma winner: van Gisbergen. OGS season record: 9-6.
OGS competition index top 10 after 15 races: 1-Hamlin 448 points, 2-Reddick 334, 3-Larson 266, 4-Christopher Bell 233, 5-van Gisbergen 208, 6-Gibbs 207, 7-Chase Elliott 181, 8-Ryan Blaney 157, 9-Chase Briscoe 142, 10-Bubba Wallace 83.
OGS competition index top 10 on intermediate tracks (tracks most similar to Chicago) 1-Hamlin 372, 2-Reddick 232, 3-Bell 132, 4-Larson 125, 5-Elliott 120, 6-Briscoe 68, 7-William Byron 64, 8-Brad Keselowski 63, 9-Daniel Suarez 51, 10-Erik Jones 43.
