Trophy hunt transformed for the times: Kaulig Racing preview

Known for its “trophy hunting” mentality, Kaulig Racing has transformed its lineup of hunters for the 2024 NASCAR season.

Signs of their transformation started peering through back in July. After Justin Haley nearly upset Shane van Gisbergen in the inaugural NASCAR Cup Series race at the Chicago Street Course, he was blunt about himself and Kaulig.

“Obviously we’re not a manufacturer-supported team to an extent. I had 20 minutes of simulator time for this race,” Haley said, twice more emphasizing the minimal time in the simulator compared to van Gisbergen.

Haley added Kaulig was “starting to blossom as a race team” but said he was personally “in the middle of contract talks.”

Three weeks later, Justin Haley was gone to Rick Ware Racing.

“It just kind of seemed like everything had stalled out where I was and I needed to make a change for myself and I thought this was a good opportunity,” Haley said in late January on the RWR deal.

In September, Kaulig Racing named Haley’s replacement to be Daniel Hemric – to the chagrin of Chandler Smith whom Kaulig put in a Cup car, not Hemric last year.

When asked about Smith’s future two weeks later, team executive Chris Rice advised Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic to “talk to his agent.”

At the same time, Allmendinger’s future was unknown even in the shadow of him earning his second Cup win for Kaulig and padding his place as the only winner for their Cup program.

Two weeks later, Kaulig ruled Smith out of their 2024 Xfinity lineup, officially deciding in December to bump Allmendinger into his ride.

While Allmendinger has some NASCAR Cup Series starts in 2024, he’ll share the ride with newcomer Josh Williams.

Williams is coming to an organization with more wins (4), top-5 finishes (21), top-10s (51) and playoff entries in one season than his preceding team has had to date (no wins, 13 top-5s and 36 top-10s in eight seasons).

Years of goodwill and good relations, pushed to the brim by one of the most viral moments in recent memory, have led Williams to his best opportunity yet.

After Williams parked his car on the start-finish line and walked to pit road after NASCAR ordered he park his car for bringing out a caution at Atlanta last year, Alloy Employer Services doubled down and used it as a prime moment to leverage their partnership with Williams.

That’s without mentioning Williams going out of his way to offer a hand to anyone in the garage area and reading to children in hospitals near the racetrack – an initiative that caught the attention of Musselmann’s applesauce.

Now, Williams enters 2024 with a trip to L.A. in the NASCAR Cup Series and getting to double duty, not parking duty, at Atlanta three weeks afterward.

Joining him on track is Shane van Gisbergen, a franchise driver of a different sort – for Trackhouse, not Kaulig – who will fill a void never quite filled after a deal with Landon Cassill and now-defunct Voyager Digital fell through before 2023.

After a year in general decline adjusting to the rapidly changing, post-Gen 7 world of NASCAR where one-hundred-thousandths mean hundreds of thousands won or lost at the end of the year, Kaulig Racing has a mix of solid talent and backers behind them to get on solid ground entering 2024.

Most intriguing of all is Daniel Hemric who has rode a miracle career turnaround from a disappointing 2019 season to a near-apocalyptic 2020 into a breakthrough 2021 title year and two years of stability with Kaulig now rewarded with a Cup title.

Hemric’s strength is in his relationship with his partners. If he hadn’t negotiated a drive-to-get-paid deal with Poppy Bank to get into a Joe Gibbs Racing ride he took to the Xfinity Series championship in 2021, it’s unlikely Hemric would’ve gone to Kaulig.

While we know Daniel Hemric will anchor Kaulig’s NASCAR Cup Series program in the No. 31 car, the full lineup for the No. 16 Cup car remains unknown.

Going back to multiple drivers in the No. 16 car is a mixed decision. However, with Allmendinger coming into the fold with backing from Celsius and Williams with backing from Alloy, it may be exactly what Kaulig Racing needs as they look beyond 2024.

NASCAR Cup Series

• 1 win (none in 2022)
• 5 top-5 finishes (6 in 2022)
• 13 top-10s (13 in 2022)
• 20.3 average finish (20.0 in 2022)
• 2 full-time drivers (1 in 2022)

NASCAR Xfinity Series

• 4 wins (5 wins in 2022)
• 21 top-5s (25 top-5s in 2022)
• 51 top-10s (54 top-10s in 2022)
• 13.3 average finish (12.8 average finish in 2022)