DAYTONA BEACH, Fla.— Daniel Dye is the latest piece of the 2025 Kaulig Racing puzzle to be revealed.
The 20-year-old DeLand, Fla., native is enjoying a 10-race season in the NASCAR Xfinity Series this season with Kaulig.
Dye will continue full-time behind the wheel of the No. 10 Chevrolet next year alongside Josh Williams and a driver to be named soon.
“It’s really exciting to be able to run the 10 car full-time next year for Kaulig in the NASCAR Xfinity Series,” Dye said. “It’s really cool to do it here at the Chevrolet Experience in the infield at Daytona International Speedway. I spent a lot of time here growing up as a kid watching races.
“So, it’s cool to do it here and excited for the future at Kaulig Racing. There’s a lot of exciting things going on right now with AJ (Allmendinger) going into the Cup car—and the future of the Xfinity program seems really bright.”
In his seven starts with Kaulig in 2024, Dye’s best results were 10th at Iowa Speedway and seventh last month at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He’ll complete this year’s NXS run with races at Kansas Speedway, Las Vegas Motor Speedway and the season finale at Phoenix Raceway.
“Just looking forward to it all,” Dye said. “We’ve had some good runs this year—and I’ve only had a handful of starts in the Xfinity car. As I start to figure it out, more towards the end of this year with some intermediate races, more short-track races, I hope to check all the boxes and prepare for 2025.”
For the CRAFTSMAN Truck Series sophomore, the NXS announcement was a “fly-by” of sorts. Dye, who has his pilot’s license, picked up Kaulig Racing president Chris Rice from North Carolina prior to the weekend activities at Daytona.
Dye’s visit to his home state is short-lived. The driver of the No. 43 McAnally-Hilgemann Racing Chevy is headed to the Milwaukee Mile for the first race of the truck playoffs which kicks off on Sunday.
“It’s been fun,” Dye said. “It’s been a hard fight. Learned a lot last year when I ran full-time for (now-defunct) GMS, then the switchover to McAnally has been really good for me and the race team that we brought over.
“Excited to go to Milwaukee—the first race. We’re only two points out of eighth place, which is all we’ve got to get to, to race our way into Phoenix. Just looking forward to getting to ‘The Mile.’ It’s a place where I’ve run a couple of races there in ARCA. I’ve got quite a bit of experience there, so I’m looking forward to getting there tomorrow night.”
With Allmendinger, 42, Williams, 31, and Shane van Gisbergen, 35 leading Kaulig’s Xfinity charge, next year’s stable will feature considerably younger talent. Allmendinger returns to full-time Cup competition for the organization in 2025 along with a driver to be named. After being on loan from Trackhouse Racing for a season, van Gisbergen is expected to advance to full-time Cup as Justin Marks’ expands his company’s footprint.
But as a whole, Kaulig is transitioning to a fresh approach for next year. The company, located on the Richard Childress Racing campus, will adopt a symbiotic relationship with RCR. Kaulig Racing’s three full-time NXS teams are developing a one-team approach with the Nos. 2 and 21 at RCR. Allmendinger will work more closely with Austin Dillon, Kyle Busch and a second Kaulig Cup driver., still to be named.
Rice said the new strategy is the only way to survive under the current NASCAR landscape.
“We’ve all struggled,” Rice said. “RCR has struggled. Kaulig has struggled. So, it’s time to become one. We’ve been a partner of theirs since we got in the sport. Matt (Kaulig, owner) has always been aligned with them. So it’s time to become one.
“We’re not (exchanging) money or any of that, but we’re going to be one team. When we leave Welcome, North Carolina, it’s not going to be two-and-two Cup (cars), it’s going to be four teams and five Xfinity (teams). And if we can do that, we will start succeeding.”
All of NASCAR’s alpha programs enjoy technological alliances. Team Hendrick works closely with Spire Motorsports. Team Penske has a partnership with the Wood Brothers. And while seven miles separate Joe Gibbs Racing and 23XI Racing, the six squads act like one big Toyota Racing factory team.
When RCR and Kaulig restructured some of their systems, Rice saw instant results.
“We had a lunch and RC (owner Richard Childress) was there—everybody was there—and I got up and spoke in front of 400-and-30—some people and when they went to Richmond, Austin won and the 8 car (Busch) finished fourth,” RIce said. “They know that we are behind them 100 percent and we want to win races in Cup. We want them to win races. We want Chevy to win races.
“And if we can lock arm-in-arm and just go hard from the top down, then we can win races again in Welcome. Like Richard always says, ‘Let’s put our resources together and get the most out of this. It’s time for us to get after this. We know we can win on Saturdays, now we have to go win on Sundays.”
Follow Lee Spencer on Twitter @CandiceSpencer or email her at: [email protected].
