‘I Want to Win Every Race That We Enter’: Kevin Ray Talks TRICON Success

The ‘TRI’ in TRICON Garage signifies the three team partners. Most know David Gilliland as a former driver and the father of current NASCAR Cup Series driver Todd Gilliland. The other two partners are Johnny Gray, grandfather to Taylor and Tanner Gray, and Kevin Ray.

Ray has been in racing all his life. Kevin is the son of Johnny Ray, who began the famed tradition of driving a tractor-trailer around Talladega Superspeedway before the start of the race. Kevin himself made 20 ARCA Menards Series starts, highlighted by a fourth-place finish at Talladega, driving for his family-owned team, and a lone NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series start.

Before joining TRICON, Kevin Ray worked at Red Horse Racing, then HScott Motorsports. When team owner Harry Scott sold the team following the 2016 season, Ray was under contract for the 2017 season, then joined what was then known as DGR-Crosley. After a meeting with team owners Gilliland and Bo LeMastus, Ray “loved the vision of what this place could be,” and has been a part of the organization ever since.

During the race weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway, Mark Kristl spoke to Ray, who most recently celebrated Kaden Honeycutt’s first victory in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.

Mark Kristl, Frontstretch: How have you gone from the beginnings of the organization to arguably the top team in the series?

Kevin Ray: 100% percent, the people. We have 73 people to run five Truck teams. We are 73 people strong. There are five people, four in the marketing and PR department, and a CFO. Everyone else is out on the floor working. We run very lean, but it’s all about the people. From a competition side with Matt Puccia to anything on social media with the PR department, we all have a passion for what we’re doing and it’s unbelievable. Even on weekends off, a lot of us will go dirt race. We’re still racers at heart. We want to be around racing, so the best thing is the people.

I tell everyone that when you’re coming through for a shop tour, we all must follow the same rules. We all must pass inspection but it’s the people who make the difference in what TRICON is.

Kristl: Seven-year journey … is this what you expected?

Ray: If you look back at our first year as TRICON, we should’ve won the championship that year. We went to Phoenix Raceway as arguably the best team going in. Unfortunately, that did not happen. Year two, Championship 4 again, should’ve won, didn’t. Everything takes a little time. You have to learn to lose before you win. There’s only one winner, and how the format was the first two years, as TRICON, we didn’t get to bring the trophy home, unfortunately. We got the small one but we didn’t get the big one. It’s certainly not from a lack of people or resources; it was just the format. Wrecking with Carson Hocevar, it made us better as a race team. It’s unfortunate but we came back stronger and wanted it more.

Kristl: What’s it like being arguably the top team now?

Ray: It’s been a lot of hard work to get us where we are, and it’s the people and work that’s going to take to keep us on top. A very good mentor of mine once told me, “If you’re not growing, what are you doing?” So it is all about growth, getting the right people in the right place and continuing to look at what’s next. And next is hopefully the 2026 championship. That’s our goal.

My one takeaway every day is I don’t want to win every race; I want to win every race that we enter.

Kristl: With 73 people, how do you, as the GM, and the organization as a whole, balance it all?

Ray: It’s 6 a.m. mornings so that I can get in and get my work done before everyone starts to come in. It’s all that we know, all that we want.

I cannot speak on behalf of everyone here, but we want to be a different organization than anywhere else. I don’t want your experience at TRICON to be like any other race team you’ve been at. I want us to have a culture where people want to be here, they want to work hard, and they like to be a part of this. We might not have the nicest race shop, but we have the best trucks and the best people. Every year, every month, other race teams are trying to hire our people away. What I hope our people say is they don’t work for us, they work with us.

I will reiterate, it’s the same parts and pieces on trucks, but we’re a little different because we want our people to be the difference. So our culture at TRICON is all about the people. It’s all about running well, winning races and the best performance. But how do you get the best performance out of people and make them happy?

At TRICON, we have progress boards on the wall. It’s did you have one of the top-five best lap times? Were your pit stops good? Those boards track everything, and we want those to be completely shaded in at the end of the year. That’s how we measure our success. Running five trucks, we’re not always going to have all our trucks running in the top five. But what led to that truck not finishing well? Was the performance there before the checkered flag? That’s how we measure success, though we want the trophies.

When we’re in the shop, we’re one team. At the racetrack, we have five teams. We’re one team until the green flag, then we’re racing for ourselves.

Kristl: Do you have any under-the-radar memories?

Ray: My favorite is obviously the championship. Specifically, when we got back from Phoenix, I went around the shop and spoke to every single person who wasn’t there with us. They didn’t get to celebrate the championship, they weren’t at the banquet. My favorite moment was getting back to the shop and talking to every single employee about their take. We hope there are more championships, but my personal favorite moment was seeing the elation. We’re in Phoenix for a few days, so we were a few days removed from the championship, so getting back to see the smile and hearing their take, one-on-one.

Every single moment is different because our roles are all different. Everyone has a different perspective, so you want to live through those experiences. To hear what it meant to those guys was great. Now, every championship from now on will be different.

The format is now different. Even the past ones. The goal was the same but it was racing, not winning. Winning is great, but we want five trucks with drivers who work together to make us more competitive as a team.

Corey Heim is a phenomenal talent. He should be full time in a Cup car. Fortunately for us, he’s not, so we’re glad that he gets to race with us. There are cool moments in everything that we do.

Dario Franchitti … c’mon man! He and Jimmie Johnson are driving for us; you cannot make those stories up. At St. Pete with Dario, just a cool moment in our history, and something I will always remember. We went to St. Pete. We took a merchandise tent and sold our stuff at a race. We stayed for the IndyCar race the next day. Those fans were so excited, and that whole St. Pete vibe was different because obviously of Dario, and that was such a cool Truck Series race. I hope we go back many times.

San Diego is going to be fun. Jimmie will be very good for us.

You cannot take away from what Gio Ruggiero or Tanner are doing. Tanner didn’t grow up circle-track racing, he was in drag racing. So he’s behind all these kids who’ve been doing that their whole lives. His growth and experience have been different from any of our other drivers.

Every part of what we get to do is memorable and we’re fortunate.

Kristl: You talk about the driver lineup. Do you head the department of scouting up-and-coming drivers?

Ray: Nobody at TRICON will take credit for that role. We want input from our partners and Toyota. We look at so many drivers racing so many things. With that said, we’re a development team. If our drivers aren’t successful and don’t move on, then we’ve failed. We want to make sure that we give each driver the best equipment. One team doesn’t get something that the other doesn’t. TRICON has a bright future to 2030.

There are some young kids in the late model world who are phenomenal. But do they have the work ethic and desire to be successful at this level? It’s not all fun and games. It’s a lot of work, but the kids must be willing to put that work in and the parents must be willing to hold their kids accountable. I’m excited about what the future holds. There’s still more to be announced for this year and 2027. My goal is that everyone will be proud of where we’re going.

Kristl: Is there any bucket list item, like winning at a certain racetrack, having all five trucks finish in the top five, or something like that?

Ray: I want to win every one. We don’t come to the racetrack to run second. Every race should be a win. Next item on the list is the regular season championship, and then win it all at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Personally, I want to win Talladega because that’s my home racetrack. We want to win every race we enter. Gio winning at Talladega last year, because I’m from there, that was one of my favorites.

With the people we have at TRICON, we should win them all. We don’t, but it’s not for a lack of trying.

I get up every morning, go to work, and work is always hectic, but going into battle with our group of drivers this year, it’s exciting to be able to go to work. It can be frustrating but being able to come into the office and see the 73 strong at TRICON — it has taken a long time — all that hard work is paying off and we’re in a very good spot to continue.