Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Flirts with NASCAR Debut as Partnership with BMW and IMSA Ends

What’s Happening?

Late yesterday evening, RACER reported that the car manufacturer BMW will pull factory support of its teams following the conclusion of the 2025 IMSA season. This includes the team Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, which ran BMWs since 2009. While the team did say that their preferred route would be to enter negotiations with a new manufacturer that would keep them in the same IMSA class in which they competed, they did allude to other options in their back pockets. If it gets to a point where that’s off the table, the team did float a couple of potential ideas. One of them was maybe shifting their focus to competing in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series and IndyCar NXT.

• Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing currently competes in the IndyCar Series and the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Series. The team is owned by retired racer and ChampCar champion Bobby Rahal, comedian David Letterman, and Michael Lanigan.
• With Dodge Ram returning to the series in 2026, they have yet to sign a team. Could Rahal’s team be the potential entry point for them? It is interesting that they named the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series specifically, and not the Cup Series or NASCAR in general. Could talks have already taken place?

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