Kaulig Racing Headlines New NASCAR Reality TV Show

Kaulig Racing is making a big move this year in NASCAR — and it’s made for TV.

The team, based in North Carolina but started by Northeast Ohioan Matt Kaulig, is getting into truck racing with five entries in NASCAR’s Craftsman Truck Series. Three of the drivers will be Brenden “Butterbean” Queen, Daniel Dye and Justin Haley. The fourth truck will be driven by a series of “free agents,” Kaulig says, anyone from racing legends to social media presences. And the fifth will undergo a month-long job interview, made for television.

“Race for the Seat” will premiere at noon Jan. 25 on Fox (before the NFL conference championship games, Kaulig notes), and the subsequent seven episodes will air on FS1, and also be available on Ram’s YouTube channel. The show ends Feb. 6, and the new driver will race at Daytona a week later.

The series, executive produced by UFC’s Dana White and Thrill Sports Productions, follows 15 drivers vying for the chance to drive one of the Craftsman Trucks for Kaulig. The contestants lived together in a home in Winston-Salem, N.C., last fall, and raced in simulators as well as in varying types of vehicles, from go-karts to late-model racers.

“When you can win a competition against 14 other race car drivers, you’re already very good,” Matt Kaulig says. “It was a very thorough examination of who our next driver is, and hopefully we make them a star.

“It’s an entertaining show whether you’re a race fan or not.”

This will be Kaulig Racing’s first year in the Craftsman Truck Series, one of three main series in NASCAR. The racing team started in 2016 with a car in what was then the Xfinity Series (now O’Reilly Auto Parts), and moved into the NASCAR Cup Series in 2020. Kaulig will continue to race two cars in the Cup Series, but is withdrawing from the O’Reilly Series to focus more on trucks.

Kaulig has partnered with Ram trucks, marking the manufacturer’s return to NASCAR after 13 years. The automaker has a long and storied history in stock car racing, going back to Lee Petty and his son Richard. But the most recent partnership ended in 2012 — on a high note, as Brad Keselowski won the championship driving a Dodge.

All the cars in NASCAR are either Chevrolets, Fords or Toyotas. But with Dodge’s entry into the Craftsman Series, Kaulig sees an opening.

“We’re bringing Ram back into the series,” he says, noting that O’Reilly and NASCAR Cup cars might not be far behind.

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