Adam Stern dropped a bombshell on the NASCAR world on Monday reporting that JTG-Daugherty Racing could see a major ownership shakeup along with losing their sponsor, Kroger. What exactly is happening at JTG-Daugherty Racing?
According to Stern, Kroger and team owner Tad Geshickter might be moving to a new race team in 2024. Through other contexts, the most likely team could be Joe Gibbs Racing. As Stern reports, JTG-Daugherty Racing co-owner Tad Geshickter, who has close ties to Kroger, is also partnered with Joe Gibbs Racing through his agency, Brand Activation Maximizer.
There are a couple of possible scenarios we can deduce from this. One is Geshickter leaving JTG-Daugherty altogether.
JTG-Daugherty Racing losing Kroger and a team owner would be a major loss for the team. In 2023, according to Racing Reference, Kroger was listed as a primary sponsor for 21 of 36 races. Without that funding and the funding from a major investor, where is the money coming from for JTG-Daugherty Racing? This also adds to the charter chatter, which we will discuss below.
The second scenario is Geshickter letting JGR align with JTG-Daugherty. This means an additional race team for Toyota, which is big due to Toyota having the fewest full-time Cup Series cars with 8.
Stern did not elaborate on which specific scenario was most likely aside from Geshickter and Kroger potentially going to JGR.
If JTG-Daugherty is forced to dissolve or sell a charter due to lack of sponsorship or funds, that opens up an extra Cup Series charter. We already know that at least 4 race teams are reportedly interested in purchasing charters as Adam Stern reported earlier this month.
It’s far from a guarantee that a charter will become available at JTG-Daugherty, but, it is an interesting possibility. Could this be Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s opportunity to head to the Cup Series as a team owner? Could Trackhouse use it to expand its Cup Series operations?
Given the JGR and Toyota connection here, it seems most likely a charter would go to a Toyota team. With Geshickter potentially moving to JGR and Toyota being interested in adding another race team, maybe a team like 23XI or Legacy Motor Club could absorb the charter or the operations of JTG-Daugherty Racing. That could be where the JGR alliance goes.
In the end, we do not know exactly what will happen with JTG-Daugherty Racing yet. However, we do know that there could be major changes incoming.
This weekend all three NASCAR national touring series will head to Atlanta. EchoPark Speedway is a 1.54-mile quad-oval track featuring high banking of about 28 degrees in the turns and 5 degrees on the straights. The configuration promotes high speeds and tight pack racing. The track’s steeper banking and narrower racing surface make it race more like a superspeedway than a traditional intermediate oval. However, as the track has aged since the repave before the 2022 season, it has become a distinct type of racing. The track is now somewhere between the racing on intermediate tracks and that found at Daytona and Talladega.
Over the past two years, Atlanta has produced some of the most exciting racing in the NASCAR Cup Series. In 2024 the first race at Atlanta was decided in a three-wide photo finish. The margin of victory in that race was .003 seconds. Last summer over a quarter of the field was taken out by wrecks. The racing that resulted shifted away from the two or three line drafting that has dominated in recent years. Instead the race looked more like drafting from previous generations.
Team Penske has won two of the six races at Atlanta over the past three seasons. In addition, to the wins, the team has two more Top 3 finishes and another two Top 5 finishes in that time. Simply put, Team Penske runs up front here. The finishes are not flukes either as the Penske drivers have dominated the laps led category. Joey Logano has led over 50 laps three times. Drivers from Team Penske have led laps in all six races in that time. In fact, in five of six races all three drivers led at least one lap.
Backing up historical performance at Atlanta, Team Penske was again strong on Sunday. Joey Logano was in contention on the last lap. Ryan Blaney had a strong car, but made what was ultimately the wrong decision about when to pit and got shuffled back. Austin Cindrc started at the back and worked his way forward and led laps. Ultimately Cindric was in a wreck and relegated to a poor finish. However, all three drivers had cars and performances that made them a threat in the Daytona 500.
At Win The Race our 100,000 simulations of Sunday’s race are very high on Team Penske. We have Ryan Blaney as the favorite, winning over 11% of our simulations. Joey Logano is the second most likely driver to win, winning 9.6% of the simulations. Finally, Austin Cindric is the fourth most likely driver to win per our simulations, winning 8.1% of the time. This gives the Team Penske drivers a combined win rate of 29.3% or fair value of around +240.
This gives us plenty of room for us to be higher than we should be on Team Penske and still have an edge when compared to the +340 (22.73% implied) odds being offered at DraftKings. I want to keep both a protection against the simulation being too high on Penske and a reasonable edge, so I would bet this down to +300.
The 2026 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series season opener at Daytona drew nearly 1.4 million viewers on FS1, beating the 2025 opening race number by 37%, and becoming the most-viewed Truck Series event since 2016.
NASCAR’s secondary series is facing a huge brand change, leaving the title name “Xfinity Series” to become the brand-new O’Reilly Auto Parts Series. What is not changing, however, is its broadcast partner. The CW is headed for its 2nd season with the series, and has been investing heavily in it. Year after year, we put up the rating numbers and rank them accordingly in comparison to the previous season. Here’s how it works:
All Races (1 Total in 2026)
