It’s been a tough year for Kaulig Racing and Ty Dillon. After 19 races, he sits 32nd in the championship with an average finish of 25.4. And with the season nearly halfway over, one eye will already be on next season, especially for teams that haven’t quite made headlines in 2026. But Kaulig Racing CEO Chris Rice doesn’t want to go down that road just yet. With Dillon’s contract set to expire at the end of the year, questions about his future continue to swirl, and Rice has finally addressed where things stand.
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Where will Richard Childress’ grandson race in 2027?
“We have not had any conversations. All the noise around that, he and I talked a little bit about what the future looks like. We’re working on a big project for everybody, and I’ll just tell you, he and I have not had any conversation about 2027,” Rice said about Childress’ grandson Dillon in an interview with SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
For now, Rice wants the team’s focus to remain firmly on improving its performance this season. While a playoff berth looks highly unlikely at this stage, a dramatic turnaround isn’t impossible if Kaulig Racing can make significant strides and find Victory Lane later this year. However, based on Dillon’s form and the pace of the No. 10 Chevrolet so far, that scenario appears to be a long shot.
Dillon’s best result of the 2026 season is a 12th-place finish at Nashville Superspeedway in May. Those results do little to strengthen the 34-year-old’s case for a new deal, and Rice appeared to acknowledge that reality with his latest comments.
“What we’ve talked about is getting better this year. We’re talking about what’s happening right now, we’re only in July. We do things different than everybody else. I know the noise is, his future is unknown. He’s had a one-year deal the entire time he’s been here. He knows that, we know that. At the end of the day, Ty has run really fast. He just hasn’t had the finishes. He’s done things he’s needed to, inside our race team,” Rice added.
Rice acknowledged that Dillon is one of the nicest people he has worked with. However, he did admit that while the driver is a great candidate for their program, the future is unpredictable. He insisted that he and Dillon have chosen not to talk about 2027. In his words, “We’re worrying about right now”, and he wants Dillon to concentrate on the 2026 campaign.
That said, Rice did offer a rough timeline for when there could be clarity on Dillon’s future. He revealed that the team expects to begin discussions over the next couple of months and believes its plans for the 2027 lineup should become clearer by August. Rice added that Dillon is aware of the timeline as well and knows the team expects to have more concrete answers by then.
What lies ahead for Kaulig Racing as an organisation?
Currently, Kaulig Racing is running Chevrolet-powered cars, but there is a chance that Dodge could join the party. Already, the team has partnered with RAM Trucks to run a 5-truck factory operation. Many see this as a test run to gauge the success and viability of the move before venturing back into the Cup Series. The last time Dodge raced full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series was in 2012, when they famously won the championship with Brad Keselowski before exiting the sport.
Since then, they have missed one generation of Cup cars (Gen 6) and could come back during the current Next Gen era (Gen 7). There have been reports that the American automobile giants are targeting the 2027 Daytona 500 for their grand debut. According to The Athletic’s Jordan Bianchi, parent company Stellantis had a breakthrough in the engine production department, so there is a possibility they could partner with or purchase an existing program.
Kaulig Racing is the most likely team to be part of this movement, given the Truck Series experiment. However, the big challenge is that this still makes them a two-car operation, competing against the powerhouse multi-team lineups of Chevrolet, Ford, and Toyota.
There is no guarantee that other teams and charters could come under the Dodge umbrella, but then again, that is for future Dodge to worry about. For now, Kaulig Racing and Chris Rice are focused on the 2026 campaign and getting their two drivers as high in the championship as possible. Currently, AJ Allmendinger is the highest-placed of the two drivers, sitting in 19th place, compared to Dillon in 32nd.
Whether Dillon remains part of Kaulig Racing’s plans for 2027 should become clearer in the coming weeks. For now, Rice has made it clear that contract talks are not the priority. The team’s focus remains on improving its results on the track, and if Dillon can put together a strong second half of the season, the conversation around his future could look very different by August.