Kaulig Racing is ‘making moves’ with their silly season shakeup as they tap SHR and RCR’s engineers

Kaulig Racing recently revealed two major additions to its Cup and Xfinity Series roster for the upcoming season. Mike Cook, the former lead engineer at Stewart-Haas Racing and winner of the 2017 Daytona 500 will join the North Carolina-based team as its Technical Director, while former Richard Childress Racing engineer Andrew Dickeson will serve as the crew chief for Ty Dillon’s No. 10 team.

Furthermore, AJ Allmendinger will return to a full-time Cup Series schedule after spending a year in the Xfinity Series. This time around, the veteran racer will reunite with his old crew chief Trent Owens.

As per reports, Owens has over 20 years of experience and has led his teams to one win each in the Cup and the Truck Series, besides five wins in the Xfinity Series. Given the major shakeup, there’s a lot to expect from Kaulig Racing in 2025.

Reflecting on the same, Chris Rice, President of Kaulig Racing, said in a statement (via Newsweek),

“I think this is the most impressive competition leadership group we have ever had. We have such a great core team with all the men and women of Kaulig Racing, and bringing in smart people with fresh eyes will really help us compete on the track."

The revamped team will hit the track on February 2, 2025, during the season-opening clash at the Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, marking the return of the NASCAR Cup Series to the historic track for the first time since 1971. The event will stream live on FOX from 8 pm ET onwards.

Kaulig Racing President Chris Rice makes a “bold move” involving race shop restoration

It seems like Kaulig Racing could do without the offseason. With no race to worry about for over a month, the team is currently working on restoring its shop at 105 Austin Lane, Lexington, mainly redoing the floors. A few days back, Chris Rice dropped an update on how everything is going.

“I said it last week, we’re never off. We're always getting after it in racing. We're redoing the floors...everything...we're doing the bottom shop, top shop. e love keeping the floors shining...it makes us smile,” Rice said.

However, Rice is not one to just stand and watch. At one point, he grabbed the machine that the workers were using to polish the floor and started working himself. Kaulig Racing took a snap of the same and uploaded it on X (formerly known as Twitter) with the following caption:

“They even let @C_Rice1 run the thing. Bold move cotton, let’s see how it pays off. 👀”

With a revamped team and now a revamped race shop; Kaulig Racing is indeed looking forward to a fresh start. 2025 is going to be the team’s fourth season in the Cup Series and the fans just can’t help but be excited about it.