Elliott Sadler Runs Richmond: A Circle Closes

If you read my long-ago book The Physics of NASCAR, you know that the team I embedded with was Ray Evernham’s No. 19, driven by Elliott Sadler. Richmond reminded me that it’s almost 20 years since I did the research for that book. Elliott’s homecoming of sorts completed a circle for him — and for me.

I. Why Elliott? Why Richmond?

The announcement that Elliott Sadler would run Richmond in a Kaulig Racing Truck wasn’t that surprising. Sure, Sadler last ran a major NASCAR series race in 2019, and he hasn’t been around much in mainstream NASCAR since. But the pieces fit together so well it was like the universe begging for one last appearance.

• Kaulig Racing is bringing the RAM brand back into NASCAR. The 2026 season marks the first time a Dodge-related marque has raced in one of the big three NASCAR series since Dodge exited NASCAR on November 18, 2012. They left having won the Championship that year.
• The No. 25 RAM Truck hosts a rotating roster of drivers. Tony Stewart, Clint Bowyer, Jaime McMurray, and Travis Pastrana have all run that truck.
• As I mentioned, Sadler drove Cup Series cars for Ray Evernham, the former Jeff Gordon crew chief who championed Dodge’s last return to the sport.
• Sadler is a Virginian, from his early roots in the legendary local short tracks to the velvety accent. Next to North Carolina, Virginia (especially the southern part) played a huge role in establishing the sport.
• Richmond Raceway, which has hosted NASCAR races since 1953, is struggling. Once hosting the race that determined who got into the ‘Chase’ or ‘playoffs’, the track went from two races a year to one race in 2025. What better way to raise some local interest than to promote a favorite son?
• Sadler’s son, Wyatt, is a racer himself. Dad Elliott serves as crew chief. Sadler’s full-time Cup Series career ended in 2010 — the same year Wyatt was born.
• The elder Sadler remains popular. He’s quick to make jokes, especially at his own expense. But he’s very open about regrets he had about his career. This race is a chance to address some of those regrets.

He’s also a FOM (Friend of Moody.)

So: on a muggy evening in August, the six-foot-tall, now-greying Sadler suited up in a bright black-and-yellow firesuit to be introduced to the crowd.

But before I talk about what happened, let’s look at why Sadler was even there.

II. His Reason for Leaving was also His Reason for Returning

Unlike most sports, NASCAR’s two sub-Cup Series are launching and landing pad. Many drivers start out in the Truck Series. Theoretically, the best drivers move from Trucks to the second-tier series and the best of those continue to the Cup Series. (I say theoretically because there are issues of open seats and sponsorship, but that’s another story.)

There’s movement the other way, too. Sadler moved from the Cup Series, NASCAR’s premier competition, to the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series. Justin Allgaier, the current champion, did the same. You get a nice juxtaposition of newer and older drivers. Elliott will be racing alongside Tristan McKee, who is less than two weeks past his sixteenth birthday and can’t even legally drive himself to the track because he doesn’t have a state-issued driver’s license.

Sadler’s enjoyed a strong run in what was then the Nationwide Series. In eight Nationwide seasons, he finished the year second four times, and third, fourth, fifth and sixth one time each. The best he finished in the Cup Series was ninth.

One thing many older drivers like about the lower series is that they don’t have the same grueling schedule. The ORAPS runs 33 races a year. That’s more attractive to a new parent than the 36-weekend plus exhibition races. You don’t have to be at the track as long, as the series will often practice, qualify and race over one day, or, at the most, two.

But even that wasn’t enough for Sadler.

“When I retired seven years ago, I retired for one reason, and that’s to spend time with my kids,” he said during a press conference prior to the Truck race. “I was traveling so much and missing all the sports and the ball and everything they were doing at home, and and I felt like I had followed my dream long enough. I wanted to help my kids follow their dream.”

That goal is why we don’t see much of Sadler at NASCAR races: He’s busy coaching everything from basketball to volleyball, and helping his son with his racing. Sadler’s activities shouldn’t be surprising: This is a man who earned a college basketball scholarship at James Madison University. (He was injured early and moved to racing, or what he terms “a sit-down job”. )

Family is also why he’s here at Richmond this weekend. When Chris Rice, Kaulig’s Chief Executive Officer, asked Sadler if he’d like a turn at the No. 25’s wheel, Sadler asked his family.

“So I walked in the living room and asked my kids, and they both like screamed to the top of their lungs, especially my daughter, like “we missed the track” and “we missed the people”, and they miss all this part of my life. Now that they’re older — they’re 16 and 14 now — they were ecstatic. So I called Chris back. I said, “Yeah, and I’m in, I’m in.”

III. The Waiting Really is the Hardest Part

At the end of the first section, I left Elliott standing in his black-and-yellow firesuit on a muggy Virginia evening. After the traditional prerace ceremonies, we could finally get to the part he says he loves best

“I get asked this all the time since I retired,” Elliott said. “What is the one thing you miss about racing? And it is getting in your seat, putting your window net up, you know, leaving pit road to go qualify to go race. I mean, that still burns inside of me, you know, from time to time.”

Although the skies threatened, precipitation held off the entire day. Lightning, which poses an even greater danger, did make an appearance. As most sports do, NASCAR initiates a 30-minute hold when lighting strikes within an eight-mile radius of the track. No one is supposed to be out during a lighting hold.

We got tantalizingly close to running out the lightning hold when another strike hit.

The rain picked up. That wasn’t a huge concern, though because rain at a short track like Richmond isn’t a game (race?) stopper. At only three-quarters of a mile and moderate banking, speeds are low enough that Goodyear’s wet weather tires can race in the damp. As long as there isn’t standing water, drivers can start the race and change back to slicks when the track is dry enough.

Hope grew when the main band of rain split, going north and south of the track. Fingers anxiously refreshed radar and lightning-strike apps, their frequency increasing as the clock ticked toward eight p.m. and then nine.

As if the weather weren’t enough to keep us occupied, the radio and all the television feeds in the media center went dead. We learned a dozen minutes late that a “small fire” in the television compound had taken down all the transmissions.

To the fan who decided to climb the flagstand in the middle of all this: Not a great idea, dude. Climbing a large metal structure during a thunder and lightning storm is like giving Mother Nature the middle finger. You’re just asking for it.

While we theorized about how quickly the television and radio feeds could be repaired, the clouds opened up and it poured. NASCAR delayed the race around 10 p.m. and announced it would be run tomorrow (Saturday) at noon.

IV. Let’s Race!

Logistics weren’t a problem for me. I was going to be at the track for the Cup Race later that evening anyway. But Elliott had made it clear that he couldn’t participate if the race was delayed because Wyatt raced Saturday race — and Wyatt is racing for a kart championship.

Wyatt, however, decided he would rather skip his race so he could stay and watch his Dad on track. Given the values Sadler talked about in his press conference, Wyatt’s decision shouldn’t be too surprising. I’m pretty confident that most 16-year-olds out there would have made a different decision. (And I would be remiss here if I didn’t mention Amanda, Elliott’s wife.)

Saturday at noon, the race starts with absolutely zero pomp and no circumstance, either. The introductions, invocation and national anthem were completed last night. All that remains is to issue the command, start the engines and race.

Elliott starts 32nd out of 36 cars but that 16th-row starting spot isn’t entirely Elliott’s doing. Without testing and with only minimal practice, it’s quite a challenge for someone to step into a truck and go fast. He didn’t even get a full practice thanks to a malfunctioning fuel pump that kept the car off track for the first 10 minutes of a 50-minute practice.

After two laps, he had to bring the car back in because the splitter was hitting the track. He only ran 31 laps of practice compared to the 78 laps driver Kaden Honeycutt ran. Limited practice, especially at a track where tire wear is so great, keeps a driver from getting a good feel for how the truck’s balance will shift during a green-flag run.

IV. Winning Isn’t the Point

Elliott’s family — Wyatt, wife Amanda and daughter Austyn — stood in front of the No. 25 truck for pictures. The dark clouds were just light enough to issue a promise tht we would get the race in. Elliott’s parents stepped in for a picture. Cup Series driver Ross Chastain came by for a fist bump and to wish Elliott luck. A fan asked for an autograph. MRN came by to ask what it felt like to be back.

No one asked about his chances of winning.

The five RAM trucks, in 85 races this year, have no wins and no top-five finishes. They have a total of 13 top-10 finishes, a 15.3% top-10 rate. But it’s their first year. They don’t have the tools the other manufacturers ave developed over the 31 years of the Truck Series: driving simulators, suspension testers, notebooks full of past race setups and how they turned out.

The four trucks with full-time drivers will help the Kaulig program mature from start-up to contender. The No. 25 car, with its rotating ‘All-Star’ driver lineup, is about nostalgia, publicity and good feels.

“We won yesterday,” Kaulig’s PR Rep told me, referring to the press conference that kicked off the weekend. Elliott’s older brother Hermie, who had been a fixture on the late SPEED channel’s coverage, even interviewed Elliott before the race. We were briefly transported back ten or fifteen years. It felt good.

Winning wasn’t the top thing on Sadler’s mind, either.

“I can tell you all this with a straight face,” he said. “I don’t care if I win or finish 30th. I’m here to enjoy the moment with my friends and colleagues.”

When I was following the team back in 2007, they were struggling. Elliott was unhappy much of the time. Curt. Obstinate.

“You’re judged by your results on Saturday or Sunday,” Elliott said, referring to those years. “I let that dictate how my week was going to go. If we had a good day or if we had a bad day, and it kind of dictates that Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday… I remember many a night not going to bed, staring at the ceiling, you know, hating myself for making mistakes, wish I could do better.”

Those nights are part of what made him determined that his kids wouldn’t inherit that tendency to self-recrimination that made his life difficult them.

“And so now that my son is racing, I’m very open with him,” Sadler said. “We’re not basing our happiness at the track on our results. I’ve lived that. I’ve done it. He’s not old enough to go through that mentally yet, anyway. But we’re basing it off of family time spending together and father-son stuff together at the track, and whatever happens on the track happens, because we can’t always control what happens on the track.”

Of course, getting over disappointment is one of those things that is much easier to preach than to actually do.

It’s also easier to do when you’re 50 years old than when you’re 30.

Elliott finished the race in 32nd position, right where he started. He might have gotten a better result, but he incurred a speeding-on-pit-road penalty.

Brendan Queen was the best of the RAM trucks, finishing in 20th. Corey LaJoie finished in 21st, Justin Haley in 27th and MiniTyrell in 29th. Even the experienced RAM drivers didn’t have much luck at Richmond.

Sixteen-year-old McKee finished 8th in his first Truck series start and Honeycutt — the guy who ran 78 practice laps — won the race.