Ram came back to NASCAR in February with a five-truck program run by Kaulig Racing. Five months and 15 races later its best finishes are two sixth places, one by AJ Allmendinger at Watkins Glen and one by Justin Haley at the San Diego street course. It has not won.
Friday night it goes to Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park, which has hosted 21 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series races across two runs, from 1995 to 2011 and again since 2022, and has never once been won by a driver getting his first career victory. Among active tracks with at least three races, it is the only one that has never made a first-time winner. The TSport 200 presented by Warn Industries goes 200 laps on a 0.686-mile asphalt oval, 8 p.m. ET on FS1.
The two facts are not the same fact. IRP's record is about drivers, not manufacturers, and three of Kaulig's five drivers have won Truck races nowhere at all. But they point the same direction, which is that a flat, heavy-braking short track in Indiana is a hard place to be new.
Kaulig's best shot at the local story is Justin Haley in the No. 16. Haley grew up in Winamac, Indiana, and raced at IRP as a teenager in CRA street stock and late model competition before moving up. He has never started a national series race there, and he has not been to the track at all in 10 years.
"It's always fun to go back to my home track," Haley said. "I've been to IRP in other series, but this will be my first time there racing in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series and my first time back in 10 years. We had a tough week at North Wilkesboro, but we found some speed late in the race, so we're continuing to build the notebook."
He is also the only Kaulig driver Friday who has ever won a Truck race, three of them in 2018, the year he reached the Championship 4. He has won in all three of NASCAR's national series. And he is 16th in points, 41 behind the cut line for the Chase, the series' 10-driver playoff, with three races left in the regular season. His crew chief, Mike Hillman Jr., is seventh on the all-time Truck Series list with 23 wins.
The second Indiana driver is there for one night. The No. 25 is a rotating seat Kaulig fills with a different guest at nearly every race, part of Ram's promotion of its return to the sport: Tony Stewart, Ty Dillon, Colin Braun, Corey LaJoie, Travis Pastrana, Ryan Newman, Jamie McMurray, Parker Kligerman, Clint Bowyer, Carson Ferguson and Allmendinger have all driven it in 2026. Friday it goes to Conor Daly, a Noblesville native with 133 IndyCar starts who finished 12th in this year's Indianapolis 500, leading four laps and posting his fifth consecutive top-12 there.
"I'm pumped to get this opportunity at IRP," Daly said. "Racing in front of the hometown crowd is always electric, and climbing into a Ram truck with Kaulig Racing for this race is going to be a blast. I know I'll have a lot of folks cheering at IRP!"
The team's own competition is between its two rookies. Brenden "Butterbean" Queen, in the No. 12, leads Timothy "Mini" Tyrrell, in the No. 14, in the Rookie of the Year standings. Queen leads all Kaulig drivers with four top 10s, was the highest-finishing Ram driver at North Wilkesboro, and sits 13th in points, 23 behind the cut. He is also one of the few drivers in Friday's field who has turned laps at IRP, having started there in ARCA and in the Truck Series.
Friday is his sponsor's weekend too. Cummins, the engine manufacturer that backs the No. 12, is headquartered in Columbus, Indiana.
"I've actually raced in the ARCA and Truck Series at IRP, so it's another track where I have some experience," Queen said. "We struggled a little at North Wilkesboro but found some speed toward the second half of the race, so we are still improving every week. I love short tracks." He added: "More importantly, this is Cummins' home track. Considering everything they've done for me throughout my career, it's an honor to represent them."
Tyrrell and Corey LaJoie, in the No. 10, have never seen the place. Tyrrell posted a season-best eighth at Watkins Glen in only his second road course race and an 11th at San Diego. "It's right up my alley with my short track background," he said. LaJoie, a third-generation racer with more than 270 Cup starts, has run the Speedway but never IRP. "I've never raced at IRP before," he said. "This weekend feels like the perfect chance to flip the script and hopefully turn our luck around."
The drivers standing in the way are the ones IRP has always favored. Ty Majeski has two wins here and the best average finish in the track's history at 3.75. Layne Riggs won here last year and leads the standings by 59 points. Ford has taken the last three. Chandler Smith, who beat Riggs by 8.479 seconds at North Wilkesboro last Saturday for the largest short-track margin of victory in series history, can clinch a Chase spot Friday with four points.
Twenty-one races at IRP have produced 21 winners who already knew how it felt. Ram has five trucks entered and five months of history. One of those numbers has to give first.