Earnhardt Jr. offers grim prediction after NASCAR – Sports News
NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr. was left with blended emotions after discovering out that Cup Series star Ty Dillon can be returning to Kaulig Racing for a second full-time season within the No. 10 Chevrolet in 2026.
Having spent a lot of his profession bouncing from staff to staff, and part-time experience to full-time experience and back again, Dillon loved a stable Cup Series season in 2025, thanks in no small half to his fairytale run to the ultimate of the inaugural NASCAR In-Season Challenge.
There, he defied the percentages, happening to battle Joe Gibbs Racing’s Ty Gibbs for $1 million within the ultimate. Unfortunately for the 33-year-old, he in the end misplaced out, ending seven spots beneath Gibbs at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Outside of this, Dillon managed one high 10 end — crossing the road eighth at Atlanta Motor Speedway — and a additional 12 high 20 finishes within the No. 10. Despite this, Earnhardt Jr. admitted on his ‘Dale Jr. Download’ podcast that he believed Dillon, the grandson of Richard Childress, was at Kaulig as a result of of RCR (Richard Childress Racing) and that connection,” as the 2 groups had been in a technical alliance.
This got here to an finish this offseason, with Kaulig pausing its O’Reilly’s Auto Parts Series program for good and switching to RAM within the Craftsman Truck Series, the place it’ll area all 5 of the new OEM’s rides in 2026. This might be seen as half of a longer-term plan to modify its Cup Series staff to Dodge’s Stellantis associate model, Dodge, as beforehand hinted at by Bob Pockrass.
“RCR is now going to be working with Rick Ware [Racing]. So, Kaulig is sort of shoved off of the Chevrolet ship…Get the hell out of here,” Earnhardt commented. “And they’re over in Dodge’s camp now. But Ty’s going to stay.”
Earnhardt added that he felt Dillon “overachieved” in 2025, commenting, “I’m not sure where Ty’s talent, and potential, and ceiling is, but I would say he did more than I thought he was capable of doing.”
That being stated, he predicted 2026 might be a robust season for Dillon and Kaulig as they seemingly drift away from Chevrolet. Earnhardt defined, “Man, is it going to be a frustrating year? I would predict that next year for him will be one of his toughest personally, mentally, because… He’s racing for Kaulig and they’ve got little to no support in terms of engineering and resources because they’re not…Chevrolet is not going to be helping them. And they’re not driving Dodges in Cup.”
However, Kaulig CEO Chris Rice advised SiriusXM NASCAR Radio that their partnership with RCR and ECR Engines gained’t be completely shut down, though they must be taught to fend for themselves more than beforehand.
“We still are business partners in a bunch of different other things that is not racing related. So we still are partners, but just not under the competition side,” he defined. “Everything else continues to be the identical, simply not underneath the competitors facet. So we nonetheless will use the ECR engines. They’ve been completely superb to us for 10 years happening 11 years. So they nonetheless are going to be our engine provider.
“And additionally we’ll do a lot of different business stuff with Richard. And what which means is we have now to hold our own our bodies, we have now to get our own data. We’re not going to have data from these guys. We acquired to exit and get it ourselves.
“We acquired to make sure we have now our own SIM. We acquired to make sure that every one of that stuff is in place. We have a plan for that. And I’m sure our engineers are wanting it to occur quicker than it is occurring, but it surely’s truly going alongside fairly fast. But we’ll have hurdles, man.
“When you are beginning your own program, you are doing all of your own factor, you’ve hurdles, and we all know that. And we’re ready for it. We’re set up for it. So I’ll inform you this, I’m excited, however I’m additionally scared. I’m not going to mislead you. I’m additionally nervous.”
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