WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. — The 2026 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series season has been a struggle so far for Kaulig Racing. The team has been caught behind the ball with a lack of simulation, wind tunnel time and data. Entering Friday (May 8), the team’s five trucks had combined for four top 10 finishes through seven races.
Friday saw that total increase to seven. AJ Allmendinger, driving the RAM All-Star No. 25, drove up to a sixth-place finish. That is the team’s best finish of the season.
Mini Tyrrell scored his best career finish in eighth, while Brenden Queen scored a ninth-place finish. The runs came at the right time to boost morale within the team.
Leaving The Glen, four of the Kaulig entries are 18th through 21st in the owners’ points standings, with Tyrrell’s No. 14 the lone outlier in 27th place.
“It was definitely a combined effort,” Tyrrell told Frontstretch post-race. “[We’ve] had our ups and downs as an organization and today was an up day for sure.”
For the organization, this could very well go down as a critical day where things began to turn around.
“RAM took a chance when they came back [to NASCAR], but they knew what they were getting into,” he continued. “They were very well aware that this was gonna be a building process and although we haven’t shown up to the racetrack and been top on the board every weekend, we’ve been there, we’ve used our strategy calls to our advantage.
“We’re being smart about these things and we’re there, we’re finishing. Just a huge day for the company and…without RAM, none of this would be possible and they’ve done so much for me.”
The rookie came from the CARS Tour, but his first career top 10 came at a road course. His eighth-place finish moved him up one position to 19th in the standings.
For Queen, he chose to stay out when a number of other drivers, including race winner Kaden Honeycutt, stopped for fresh tires. That boosted him into the top 10.
He held onto his finishing place for his third top 10 of the season, second in the past two races, and now has three straight top 15s.
His decision to stay out was more out of desperation than anything else.
“I really don’t think we had nothing to lose [by staying out],” Queen said. “Obviously, it was a long day for us. “Just gotta be better on my end on some shifts, then also just gotta find some speed.”
Prior to his move to stay out, Queen spent much of the race outside the top 20. Teammates Tyrrell, Corey LaJoie and Justin Haley were around the same area. Queen believes that the move to stay out netted him 15-20 positions.
“That’s a big deal for us to just keep piling those [top 10s] up,” he added. “Obviously, I’d like to drive there without having to like play strategy to get there, but those days will come, and until then we just, you know, just fight till the end right now.”
The ninth-place finish moved Queen up one place to 13th in points. He is currently 10 points behind Stewart Friesen, the last driver currently in the Chase.
Phil Allaway has three primary roles at Frontstretch. He's the manager of the Frontstretch email newsletter that publishes Monday-Friday and occasionally on weekends. He keeps TV broadcasters honest with weekly editions of Couch Potato Tuesday and serves as the Frontstretch Sports Car racing editor.
Outside of Frontstretch, Phil is the press officer for Lebanon Valley Speedway in West Lebanon, N.Y. He covers all the action on the high-banked dirt track from regular DIRTcar Modified racing to occasional visits from touring series such as the Super DIRTcar Series.