NASCAR powerhouse considered stopping after first win
By Asher Fair
Kaulig Racing: Why one car is shared between three drivers
The decision to run Justin Haley in one car and multiple drivers in the other car is one that Matt Kaulig feels will help the team in the long run.
“We’re trying to build a team,” he said. “And so even with our drivers, these guys are young. They are young guys. Daniel was in the Cup Series full-time a couple years ago and then came back in the Xfinity Series, but he’s still way young in his career. I think he aspires and wants to get back to the Cup Series. He’s a great driver, won the championship last year.
“I think Noah’s a great young talent, a great young driver, so able to get him in the fold, in the mix. And he wants to get up in the Cup Series, so we’re able to accommodate that.
“We have three Xfinity cars and we’ve been used to doing what we do in the Xfinity Series, and then we wanted to get part-time into the Cup garage and the Cup Series and just get used to that and get our guys used to it and girls used to it and our drivers used to being in that level, and develop crew chiefs and car chiefs and engineers. We’re kind of doing that ourselves, homegrown.
“And so it’s a big task to have two cars in the Cup Series. So one full-time for points and then one shared and then see what happens. See if one of those drivers or crew chiefs step up where we can make a decision about taking one of them full-time in the Cup Series.”
But again, he is adamant that the NASCAR Cup Series program won’t take anything away from the Xfinity Series program.
“But our focus is also just to win a championship in the Xfinity Series,” he continued. “A.J. won the regular season championship last year, and now we were able to get Daniel, who won the championship, to come over to Kaulig Racing. So we’ve really got two championship drivers right now in two of those cars. And we feel really good about it. We’re looking for big things out of all of those guys this year in the Xfinity Series while we develop and start to ramp up our Cup Series business.”