If this week’s news of the Hemi’s return to the Ram lineup was someone plugging the speakers back in at the party, consider this the moment that the host cues up the solo to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Free Bird: Ram’s going racing again in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.
The return marks the end of a 13-year hiatus for the brand from America’s beloved racing discipline and a 17-year absence from a full, factory-supported effort. “For more than a decade, customers and our dealer network asked about getting back into NASCAR,” said Tim Kuniskis, Ram brand CEO. “The desire was always there, but we didn’t have a plan that delivered the last tenth, and following just didn’t fit our DNA.”
Perhaps most impressively, Kuniskis told members of the media at a launch event earlier this week that the Ram race truck will make its NASCAR racing debut next season on Friday, February 13, as part of the Daytona 500 weekend. Translation: the whole program needs to go from “idea and teaser truck,” to “Green, Green, Green!” in a little more than six months. Kuniskis also mentioned at the briefing that the brand wants to have four trucks on the grid for that opening race, but the particulars of who will be running them—teams, drivers, and pretty much everything else necessary to make that happen—are still in flux. “I’ve got a truck, I have the intention; we’re going to Daytona,” said Kuniskis. “We’re looking for a date to the prom right now.”
For this weekend’s Craftsman Truck race at Michigan International Speedway, there were 32 trucks on the entry list: Six Toyotas, 16 Chevrolets and 10 Fords. The Dodge Ram debuted in the brand-new NASCAR truck series in 1995, with three Dodges in the 33-truck lineup for the kickoff Skoal Bandit Copper World Classic at Phoenix International Raceway on February 5. One of the Dodge drivers was Bob Keselowski, father of NASCAR Cup racer Brad Keselowski. Mike Skinner, in a Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet Silverado, won the race, with Dodge’s Joe Bessey driving the brand’s best-finishing truck to fourth. Other notables in the first truck race: Terry Labonte, Geoff Bodine, Ken Schrader, P.J. Jones, Sammy Swindell, Walker Evans, and former Houston Oilers and Atlanta Falcons head coach Jerry Glanville. It was Dodge’s first time back in NASCAR for a decade, and as Toyota did years later, Dodge used the truck series as a springboard back to Cup.
For Ram, like the other manufacturers involved in the series, the endeavor is a natural fit for marketing, specifically around the brand’s sportier truck offerings such as the Rebel, the RHO, and the Warlock. The Ram design team drew up the truck seen here: It’s worth mentioning, however, that the Craftsman Truck Series uses a common chassis, so the work went into the body covering that chassis. A few callouts: that large Direct Connection decal is a nod to the performance parts catalog that Mopar owners can sift through to juice their road-going machines to all manner of crazy. Also, peep that “Symbol of Protest” logo, clearly a nod to the Hemi V-8 that’s now back in the light-duty pickup.
That Hemi, however, will not be in the race truck. The series also runs spec engines—specifically the Ilmor NT1 V-8, a version of the 396-cubic-inch V-8 that has been the standard in the ARCA race series for a decade now. Still, with a V-8 back underhood at Ram, we’re hard-pressed to think of a better way to celebrate than going racing.
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