Dodge has been out of NASCAR since Brad Keselowksi won a championship in the brand’s last race back in 2012. A return started to seem inevitable when the closely-related truck brand Ram announced its return to the lower-level Truck Series last Summer—and now, it sounds like that comeback is imminent.
A report from The Athletic claims that the company is “very close to finalizing a return” to the top levels of NASCAR competition next year. The story, citing “multiple people briefed on the situation but not authorized to speak publicly,” claims that negotiations remain before deals are finalized, but agreements seem set to get the brand back on the Cup Series grid in time for next year’s season opener in February.
Kaulig Racing, the factory partner of Ram in the Truck Series, would be expected to field two Dodge entries in next year’s championship as part of the deal. Notably, Kaulig is not a team that builds its own engines. That leaves Dodge with no clear path to supplying engines for its cars, but The Athletic report suggests that a unque deal would allow Kaulig Racing V-8 supplier ECR Engines to produce a Dodge engine while still building Chevrolet engines.
ECR is owned by Richard Childress Racing, a long-time Chevrolet partner that would be expected to continue in that capacity for at least the near future. That means the company would have to build its own GM engines next to the Stellantis ones for Kaulig, something that the report claims would require the Dodge motor to have “distinct technical differences” from the unit used in Chevrolet-branded cars.
Dodge would then have an unspecified period of time to figure out its own plans to secure unique engine manufacturing, either by opening up a new supplier or acquiring the services of an existing one. Given that RCR is no longer one of Chevrolet’s top teams, that could even mean Dodge potentially poaching both the team and engine supplier ECR away from GM eventually.
As NASCAR is reportedly not planning to expand the number of available charters for full-time entries to accommodate Dodge, the brand will either have to press on with just two cars at Kaulig, find other partnerships with existing teams, or find a way to purchase more charters for either Kaulig or a separate factory operation. The Stellantis brand has no clear path to do that before the start of next season, so Dodge is likely to start its return to the Cup Series with just those two entries.
Fred Smith’s love of cars comes from his fascination with auto racing. Unfortunately, that passion led him to daily drive a high-mileage, first-year Porsche Panamera. He is still thinking about the last lap of the 2011 Indianapolis 500.