Daniel Dye set himself up for an inevitable suspension with comments he made on a livestream about IndyCar driver David Malukas, and it took only a few hours for that suspension to be announced.
And it was technically announced twice; NASCAR suspended him indefinitely, as did his Craftsman Truck Series team, Kaulig Racing. He must complete sensitivity training before he is eligible to return to the race track.
The punishment meant that Kaulig Racing needed to find a new driver for the No. 10 Ram truck for the foreseeable future, beginning with this Friday night's race at Darlington Raceway.
While it wasn't quite a second edition of "Ram Race for the Seat", the abbreviated search culminated in the team naming A.J. Allmendinger as the driver of the No. 10 entry for this weekend.
A.J. Allmendinger set for NASCAR Truck Series race at Darlington
Allmendinger, who is one of the team's two full-time Cup Series drivers, has not competed in a Truck Series race since 2021, when he competed at Watkins Glen International for GMS Racing. Before then, he hadn't competed in a Truck Series race since 2008, when he drove at Auto Club Speedway for Morgan-Dollar Motorsports.
After this weekend, there are just two more Truck Series races on the schedule before the start of May, so if Dye can complete the training and prove that his mistake was truly a senseless one-off, perhaps the team will only need to find another driver for two more events.
Those two races are scheduled to take place at Rockingham Speedway on Friday, April 3 and Bristol Motor Speedway on Friday, April 10. Dye is currently 13th in the point standings, three points below the playoff cut line, and will need to be granted a playoff waiver to remain eligible for postseason competition.
Kaulig Racing, which brought Ram back to the Truck Series for the first time since 2012 this year, run five trucks full-time in their first season in the series. Aside from Dye, their full-time drivers are Justin Haley and rookies Brenden Queen and Mini Tyrrell, with Tyrrell winning the aforementioned "Ram Race for the Seat" competition.
They also run the No. 25 "Free Agent" truck, which is set be driven by Corey LaJoie, the fourth driver in four races, this weekend. The second of those four drivers was Ty Dillon, who also competes full-time for the organization's Cup Series team alongside Allmendinger and could very well end up making an appearance as Dye's replacement at some point also.
Live coverage of the Buckle Up South Carolina 200 is scheduled to begin on Fox Sports 1 at 7:30 p.m. ET this Friday, March 20. Begin a free trial of FuboTV today and catch all of the action from Darlington Raceway!