Kaulig CEO Gives Update on Alliance Status With Richard Childress Racing

Kaulig Racing’s evolution in NASCAR is documenting a new chapter, one reshaping its alliances and overall expansion. Since joining the sport in 2016, the team has maintained a long-standing technical partnership with Richard Childress Racing, even operating a satellite shop on the RCR campus in Welcome, North Carolina.

But with Dodge’s (RAM) official return to the Craftsman Truck Series, Kaulig Racing is preparing to strike out on its own, fielding five RAM-supported trucks in 2026 while redrawing the lines of its historic Chevrolet affiliation.

For years, Kaulig operated under the Chevrolet banner as part of the ECR Engines program, but the return of Dodge to the Truck Series, without the team’s parent company, i.e., Stellantis-backed presence in the Cup or Xfinity Series, immediately sparked questions about the team’s future with RCR.

The speculation only intensified as Kaulig began creating separate social media accounts for its new Truck operation, signaling a break between its Chevrolet-based efforts and its RAM-backed expansion.

CEO Chris Rice confirmed the separation during an interview on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio back in October 2025, revealing that Kaulig Racing will be operating independently beginning in 2026. He acknowledged that while the organization had benefited immensely from its alliance with RCR, the next step in its growth meant standing on its own two feet.

Recently building up on that, discussing their relationship with the RCR team now, Rice said, “Everybody that’s ever worked at Richard Childress has been absolutely amazing to us, and we still are business partners in a bunch of different other things that is not racing related. So we still are partners, but just not under the competition side.”

Though Kaulig will maintain access to ECR engines as part of a supplier agreement, the team will now assume full responsibility for its car development and data acquisition.

“We still will use the ECR engines. They still are going to be our engine supplier, and also we’re going to do a lot of other business stuff with Richard, and it’s what that means is we have to hang our own bodies, we have to get our own information. We’re not going to have information from those guys; we gotta go out and get it ourselves. We gotta have our own sim.”

The transition is a significant step toward full independence, one that Rice admits won’t come easily. He acknowledged that the shift brings a fresh set of logistical and competitive challenges, but also a sense of pride.

He stated that while their engineers are very excited and probably wish it were happening faster, it’s actually moving along quickly. He understands that they will face hurdles, as when one starts their own program, they are doing their own thing, and he knows that, yet he stated that the team is prepared for it.