Now that the dust has settled on a busy NASCAR offseason, the teams appear ready to hit the high banks of Daytona for the first official race of the 2026 Cup Series season.
As such, Jey and I reconvened to discuss our expectations for each team in a new column titled From Ceiling to Floor where each of us will write down what we think each team’s highest (but reasonable) expectations should be while the other takes a stab at each team’s lowest (but also reasonable) expectations.
The two of us will convene at the end to decipher what each team’s most likely outcomes will be when the season draws to a close at Homestead.
The team on deck in this series is Kaulig Racing, right after we released the first part of this series talking about Hendrick Motorsports and followed it up with our entry covering Team Penske. We have since added entries covering 23XI Racing, Richard Childress Racing, Joe Gibbs Racing, Front Row Motorsports, and Trackhouse Racing.
The Ceiling – Tanner
Team owner Matt Kaulig jumped off the deep end as 2025 came to a close when he announced that Kaulig Racing would move from away from Chevrolet in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series and instead start up a brand-new factory team in the Truck Series with Ram.
Because of that decision, Kaulig lost their alliance with RCR for 2026, meaning they will operate as a completely independent operation. As we saw with Legacy Motor Club in 2023, that will be a tall task.
Their best bets are winning at one of the drafting tracks or praying for a strategy call to go their way at a road course to put AJ Allmendinger in position for a victory. Other than that, a good day for them would be competing for top-10s and top-15s on ovals.
Verdict: 1 win, Allmendinger barely misses the Chase
The Floor – Jey
Kaulig struggled mightily in 2025 even with RCR support; it doesn’t feel like a major leap to say they are poised to struggle even more so that they will be getting no Chevy support.
With the new RAM partnership in the Craftsman Truck Series, Kaulig has been shut off from all data or information outside of their own. I would be hard pressed to put any of these drivers in the top-25 in points. This is nothing against the drivers. It just seems like they are truly in a impossible situation.
Most Likely Outcome – No wins, both drivers fall short of the top-20
With a driver lineup consisting of AJ Allmendinger and Ty Dillon, Kaulig faces a challenging 2026 season as they are without direct factory support from Chevrolet as well as losing their technical alliance with RCR.
To be clear, any team with any two drivers would be in a major tailspin given these circumstances like how we saw with Legacy Motor Club in 2023. AJ should still log great finishes at road courses and ovals that are harsh on tires while Ty will look to find himself in the picture at superspeedways.
(Top Photo Credit: Kaulig Racing on Twitter)
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