Daniel Dye came into 2026 as Ram’s guy. The manufacturer had been gone from NASCAR for 14 years, and when they came back through Kaulig Racing, Dye was one of the drivers they put front and center. Full-time ride, factory backing, big expectations. It lasted a few weeks.
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Now he is reportedly eyeing a one-off O’Reilly Series appearance at Bristol with a team that has its own unfinished business in the series. According to stockcarrn on Instagram, Sigma Racing is looking at making their O’Reilly debut later this year, with Dye as the driver. Bristol is the target. Nothing is confirmed yet, but the story behind both parties makes this one worth paying attention to.
In March, Dye made offensive comments about IndyCar driver David Malukas on a gaming livestream. It went viral, NASCAR suspended him indefinitely, and Kaulig Racing eventually parted ways with him. By the time he came back, the full-time Ram seat was gone and his season was in pieces.
What followed has been a scramble. He made a Cup start at Indianapolis in July with Live Fast Motorsports, finished 38th after a DNF. He picked up a part-time Truck deal with McAnally-Hilgemann Racing. Before that, he had a brief run with AM Racing in the O’Reilly Series, which went nowhere because AM Racing made a shock exit from NASCAR.
Here is the thing about Dye, though. He is not short on money. His father Randy owns a string of car dealerships and sits on the NASCAR Foundation board. Sponsor Champion Container is still with him. The funding is there. What is missing is a home. Bristol, one of the biggest short-track weekends on the calendar. And it is exactly the kind of race a driver targets when he needs to remind people what he can do.
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Sigma’s angle on this goes back further. In November 2025, they announced they were buying out AM Racing completely. The idea was to move into the O’Reilly Series as a proper Ford factory team, switching over from Chevrolet, taking AM Racing’s shop, equipment and owners’ points, and becoming a real developmental program for Ford Performance. Ford needed it. Their presence in the series had been shrinking, and Sigma was supposed to fill that gap.
It never happened. By late January 2026, just before Daytona, the deal was dead. When Sigma dug into AM Racing’s books during due diligence, the debts were much worse than originally disclosed. They walked away.
AM Racing tried to run the season on their own without that financial support and without factory backing. It went badly. They skipped races they were scheduled to run, finished at the back in the ones they did start, and officially called it quits on May 15. Their Ford equipment has been sitting idle ever since.
That idle equipment is exactly what makes this rumor click. Sigma reportedly wants to acquire those leftover assets at a discount and use them to finally get into the series. Bristol gives them a single high-profile race to test the water without committing to a full season. Dye brings the sponsorship dollars to make it happen. Ford gets at least a small foothold back in the series after a year where that developmental pipeline they planned for simply did not exist.
No paperwork has been filed. No entry confirmed. But in NASCAR, most things start exactly like this.