Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour presented by NASCAR on FOX - Tim Kuniskis Interview

Episode Date: June 19, 2025

Ram is officially back in NASCAR. Kevin Harvick sits down with Ram CEO Tim Kuniskis to break down the brand’s long-awaited return to the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series in 2026, marking the first new manufacturer to enter the sport at the national level since 2007. They dive into why now was the right time, what went into the planning, and whether this means a Cup Series entry could be next. 0:00 - Intro 0:27 - Tim Kuniskis Joins The Show! 0:43 - Why Is RAM Back In NASCAR 5:15 - What Makes RAM Different? 15:35 - Biggest Worries Moving Forward 19:11 - Background In Racing Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We've got gone for 12 years, so we've got to come back swinging, and we think we have a way to do it. He is a legit, serious driving. Of course, I'm going to drive the truck. Are you kidding me? If you're going to give me that opportunity, there's no way I'm going to turn that down. I was in the car earlier. You stole it. They're going to know I lied to him.

I'm like, welcome to Kevin Harvick's happy hour, presented by NASCAR on Fox. And today we have a great guest in Tim Kinniscus, CEO of RAM. Tim, thanks for taking the time today to talk about your future program. Oh, no problem. Thanks for having me on. Well, it's been 13 years since Dodge, what is now, Ram has been in NASCAR racing. And now you guys have decided to come back to the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series to make another run at it.

What made that decision? What did you guys decide was the right timing to reappear back in NASCAR? Yeah, since last week, everybody's been busting my chops about that a little bit. I guess timing's everything, right? But all seriousness, it's been, I wanted to get back in because I was actually running rant or actually Dodge. Everybody calls it Dodge Ram, but I was running Dodge at the time when we came out of NASCAR. And so I got kind of painted with the Tim doesn't like NASCAR. Tim doesn't like NASCAR, but quite honestly, it had nothing to do with me.

There was a lot of stuff going on in the company at the time. And you mentioned it earlier. And it's funny that people still call it Dodge Ram because prior to, that when we started in Cup, Dodge was everything. It was all Dodge and ran together. And then at some point we split it apart in 2009. And then there was a couple more years after that. And Dodge as a standalone entity, just like all the OEMs, a lot of the profitability in the company comes out of the truck division. So it took a lot of profitability on a Dodge. So it was very difficult, very challenging for Dodge to maintain itself in Cup. But we always wanted to figure out a way.

to stay in. And then we went through a lot of changes. A lot of changes in the company. You know, we had a merger. We had a lot of changes with our CEO. And we had a couple of times that we had an opportunity to get back in. And it just never worked out. That's why I make the joke. Timings everything. Because our plan now really isn't any different than the last two times that we tried to get back in. But this time it seems to be working out in our favor timing-wise and coming back in. So we're excited about it. It's been really. way too long. It's crazy to think it's been as long as it has, but we got a plan.

So what it, yeah, so explain to us what that process has been like. How long did it take to get to the point of actually announcing that you guys were, we're going to come back and run the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series next year? What's that process been like? How long did it take to finalize the decision this time? You know, the funny thing is when you, when you come out and, business doesn't crater, it makes it harder to come back. As crazy as that sounds, because people say, hey, you're doing okay and you're not there.

Do we want to make this big investment? And the argument that I've always tried to make is racing is very expensive. There's no question about that. You know that. Everybody knows that. But you've got to look at it from the demographic standpoint of who the race fan is. no OEM really questions Super Bowl advertising. And Super Bowl advertising is also very expensive.

It's about the equivalent of running a cup team. But how come nobody ever questions a Super Bowl, but everyone questions racing? It's because racing seems way cooler, way more fun, and it becomes one of those things that it's easy to question. But if you look at the demographics, sure, there's 20 million fans in NASCAR, very passionate, engaged fans, 20 million.

You look at something like Super Bowl, sure, it's got five times this money. There's 100 million people. But it's not the same target. Within NASCAR, you've got 20 million. It's a fifth of the size. But 50% of those people drive trucks. So from a truck standpoint, it's the perfect place to be. Absolutely perfect.

It may be a fifth of the size, but from a density standpoint, it is very, very important. So if we can come in with a plan to capitalize on that target-rich environment and try and expand that beyond that current captive market, that's what makes all the sense to us. And that's what we've been working on for actually a couple of years now, and we think we have a way to do it. And everybody says, well, tell us what it is. Hold on. We're not ready to announce that piece of it yet. But I do tell everybody we have actually started to tell the story, and it's not obvious yet, but it will be. the last two weekends we've made announcements that dovetail perfectly into exactly how we're going to do it.

And they make no sense now. But when we do announce it, you'll look back and go, oh, he did tell us. It's hiding right there in front of us. So when you had the announcement and you talked about how it was going to be like anything anyone's ever done before with this comeback. So what makes Dodge a little bit different than Toyota, Ford, Chevrolet? because you guys always had a very, you were on the marketing side, you guys always had a very powerful approach to how you backed your programs up and the things that you did with your drivers, the way that your car looked, all those things were very unique to your brand and always were really, really

powerful in the teams and the way that it looked on the racetrack and the way that you presented it from how you activated it. So how does this, how does this look different from what the other brands are doing currently. Well, you know better than anybody. They call it stock car racing because it's supposed to be stock and on a level playing field and everything like that. But you know nothing's on a level playing field, right? Every team's on its own trying to compete for every last possible advantage they can.

It's the same thing on the marketing side, right? If you're going to be in racing and you're going to be the same as everybody else, why go? Unless you can do it different and stand out from the pack. And we've been gone for 12 years, so we've got to come back swinging to get noticed. We can't just put out a press release and say, you know, we'd like to come back to race.

You know, we've got to come in with a big splash and let everybody know we're coming back and we're serious about what we're going to do. So you said you're going to have four trucks on the grid at Daytona. How does that process work now? Do you have guidelines that you have to kind of abide by from NASCAR? Do you go after existing teams? Do you create new teams?

Do these teams need to have something that leads to the future? As far as cup racing, what does it look like now when you go start looking for the teams? Are you looking for experienced drivers, young drivers? What is the perfect storm for you guys to come into the grid at Daytona and say, these are our guys, these are our teams? Yeah, a couple people have brought up the four to me, especially internally. Our CFOs brought that up to me multiple times. He said, hey, hey, when did this four happen?

Where did that come from? relax. It was always part of the plan. It was always in the budget that we were talking about. But I kind of made it four. I'll be honest with you. Because some of the people that we've talked to said, you've got to have a minimum of two. And then there's other people saying you got to have a minimum of six. I said, look, okay, fine. Let's plan on four and see where it goes from there. But the dynamics have changed a lot since we left. When we left, there was no such thing as a charter, to be honest with you. and when we first started talking about coming back, nobody even said the word charter.

Then we got really far down the path and really deep into how we're going to do this. And that came up and it's, what's a charter? How's that working? Wow, that was a wake-up call. So that's making us slow down a little bit and figure exactly how we're going to do that. And that's why we said, hey, we're back. We're committed to coming back.

We are going to be in Daytona, and we're going to have at least four trucks in Daytona. How are we going to actually do that, who the team's going to be, Everybody thinks that, you know, I'm trying to play the side of it to see who raises their hand and says they want to work with us because they haven't announced that. That's absolutely not the case. That was because we got thrown for a little bit of lip with that charter dynamic. When you look at the way that some of the manufacturers do this right now, is it something to where it's in the past you guys had, you know, like the factory looking Dodge sponsored trucks? Is it, will you use vendor partners?

Have you got that far down the road? Do you have, will you help the team sell sponsorship to use the partners that you want on certain trucks? Or is that something that still be determined? No, that's actually one that we talked about very early on because we want to be involved with that because that's one of the tactics that we want to use to expand that reach because we have some people that have already expressed interest that are not, I would say, totally engraved in the NASCAR world today that have an interest to come in, but they need a vehicle and a way to come in with us. So yeah, we absolutely want to be heavily involved in that.

So when you guys, I know you have drag racing and you have other forms of racing that you have, do you have an engineering group, tech center? How will you intermingle this or will it be a totally separate program for your NASCAR stuff as far as how the support that you guys give your other racing programs currently? Totally separate, 100% separate from what we do today. But it's going to be easyer, I say easyer at first, because you know better than anybody. Coming into truck is a lot easier than coming into a cup. And that's why we're really confident with all the work that we've already done on the truck to say we'll be in Daytona. Now, TBD and who the team's going to be, but we have every confidence that we're going to be

Daytona, hopefully it's, you know, not as a walk-on, but hopefully we will be there official in an official capacity. And then it's going to take a little bit longer to get the cup. Our goal is to get the Cup a year after that. Now, everybody told me we're crazy. There's no way you're going to get there. But we think there's a couple of things from, you know, our legacy that might speed that development time up.

And maybe, maybe we could be in Daytona this year with Chuck. And then the following year, Daytona Cup, a lot of very smart people, smarter than me, have told me you better plan on two years to get back to Cup. But TBD, I'm always pushing for the quicker timeline. So I'm hoping that it's 2027, 2026 for truck and 2027 for Cup. Now, you know you've got one of the guys that knows how to do this already with Tony Stewart, already kind of in the portfolio. I mean, maybe we could just convince him to drive a truck, own a team.

You know, is there any possibility that maybe I could help you convince Tony to reemerge as that cup owner? We need him back in the Cup Series garage in the truck series garage anyway. Yeah, so people said when I was at MIS and I made this announcement, they said, you're just fishing for the team to see who stands up. And I didn't hear anything from Tony. But we'll see where this all ends up. Yeah. Well, as you look at the overall picture of everything and you talk about trucks,

will this bleed down into the grass lute? roots level as you start to get back into trucks and talk about having some sort of late model programs and things from a driver development standpoint, or is it too early to talk about that? No, no, we definitely will do that. I mean, it's part of the commitment that we made that we'll be involved in that. And, you know, I'd be lying to you if I told you, we haven't talked to some teams already and some of the teams that we've made no commitments, but some of the teams that we have talked to have brought that up and how we could accomplish.

that. So that's definitely something we're going to be involved. Well, it's really interesting because in some of these talks, and we've heard Cletus's name pop up. And have you ever seen anybody that can, I mean, I interviewed Cletus and we talked to Cletus. We had him on this show. He broke all the YouTube records. He broke every viewership record that we had. And I got to spend some time with him. What's the balance between marketing, competition, is that something that you guys look at with a guy like Cletus and the mystique and the intrigue that he brings from a totally different fan base than any of us have over here? But he's blended in well and learning about everything that's going on.

So when you look at that driver lineup, team lineup, how much of it is having a marketing sensation like that, that reaches more than the NASCAR fan base compared to you got to win in some of this. Obviously, you guys are like everybody else. You want to win. What's the balance in the marketing from a driver's standpoint to the winning side of things that you guys want to balance? Yeah, that's a great question. First of all, on Cletus, Garrett, I don't know where that came from.

People suspected that we had something to do with that. we actually had absolutely nothing to do with it. I don't know if maybe it was timing, coincident. I don't know. I don't know where that came from. Maybe it dovetails with some of the stuff that I said about how we're going to do it totally different. I don't know. I hope that didn't cause any problems for him because, honestly, God, we had absolutely nothing to do with it.

I don't know him. I talked to him one time casually, but don't know him. You should know him. He's worth knowing. He might be able to build some. sort of exotic burnout car, something that would just blow the internet up. So you guys, you guys, I don't know who he is. I've seen the stuff that he does.

And it is very, very interesting and a lot of respect for what he does and how he does it. And I think that's actually a good segue into how do you balance, you know, the marketing with the racing. First of all, you know, it's no joke. I mean, it's serious business. So you've got to be very serious about how you do it. And I think he balances that well. He is a legit, serious driver.

I mean, he's not a joke. There's been some other, maybe not in this sport, but there's been some other sports where there's some things that are, I would say, more exhibitionist than what he's doing. He is legit. He just also happens to be a completely entertaining person that's coming from outside the sport. So I think it's very interesting that he's bringing in what I'll call a net new audience

or in some cases a net new audience to the sport. So that piece of it's very interesting. But we would never, and our intention is never to try and do that in a way that diminishes the respect of the sport and comes in with a very professional team. But if there's some marketing benefit to it, absolutely we're going to do that. So what is the, what's the thing that you're worried about the most as you go forward? Now, I think that the spec engine, and I think that you would probably agree, the engine itself is probably the hardest part to get developed. it for Cup. What for the truck program specifically, what's, what's the biggest worry that you have going forward here before you get to Daytona? When do you really start pressing on on different things to

get, what's your biggest, what's your biggest worry in front of you so far with the truck thing as you as you got the announcement done? My biggest worry initially was the charter thing, but then I finally got my head around that and accepted, okay, that is what it is. The funny thing is, my biggest worry about truck is cup. And I got to explain what I mean by that. The way we want to race, we want to be very serious and how we go to cup. And to do that, or I mean into truck, but to do that, we need to make sure that we have a path towards cup because the things that we want to do, those teams are going to want to be in both. They're not going to want to be, you know, with one manufacturer in cup and one different manufacturer in truck or just in truck or things

like that. So my biggest worry is making sure that we can hit our timing to be in truck and not, I'm sorry, in cup. So that's really what's keeping me up in that. I'm feeling good about where we're out of a truck. The car that we, or the truck that we showed at, MIS, everybody's like, oh, that's a stunt, that's a prototype. That's a concept. It's not a concept. That's full on NASCAR truck. So you drove that truck, right, at Darlington, correct? Oh, I got in a lot of trouble. I mean, I got in a lot of trouble for that. I showed up for that shoot.

And I didn't know this. They didn't tell me, which is probably good. They told everybody that it was going to be green screened, and I wasn't going to be on track in the truck. Well, they never told me that, though, but they told everybody else that. So everybody was like, oh, okay, fine, fine, fine. They're going to do it on green screen, no big deal.

I should have fully expecting. No, of course, I'm going to drive the truck. Are you kidding me? If you're going to give me that opportunity, there's no way I'm going to turn that doubt. So then everybody was freaking out. And there was a gentleman there that was helping on the driving side. And he's got a lot of,

I don't want to say who it is because I didn't ask him ahead of time if it was okay. But he's got a lot of credibility in that space. And he said, no, no, no. It's okay. I vouch for Tim. I've been with him on a lot of things. I've seen drive. I vouch for him.

It's good. Now, the funny thing is that guy, I have known him a long time. But he's never seen me drive a golf cart, much less anything else. So he went out on a total flyer. And so they went with it. And they said, okay, fine, fine. Oh, you've got it for a head. It must be great.

It's fine. So he comes over to me and he tells me this. And he goes, now I want to let me know. I was in the car earlier and the clutch is a little wonky. You got to be really careful. You got to really slip the clutch. Because if you stole it, they're going to know I lied to him. I'm like, shit.

So, I mean, I'm really slipping the clutch getting out onto the track and pulled it off. It worked out okay. But then I got out there and they had the radio in the car. and I can hear it perfectly. But they're telling me, slow down, slow down, slow down, because they didn't want me to pass the truck with the camera. But there's no way I'm slowing down. So, I mean, I'm wide open.

I passed the camera truck, and I'm going. About two and a half laps in, I ran out of fuel. And they're yelling. Didn't you hear us on the radio? I'm like, oh, my God, no, it's all garbled. I couldn't understand you. I don't know what you were saying. They were there.

They weren't happy. But they worked out. We got the shot you needed. So you obviously like to drive. Have you raced? Have you raced anything or what's your racing background from the driver's seat itself? Minimal. I've done like the Richard Petty experience multiple times.

Look, I don't tell it to be any kind of a driver. My funniest story is the first time I was out. I was doing a lead follow and they said to me and the guy who was leading said, okay, here's the deal. The only thing is you just stay on my bumper. You stay on my bumper the whole time. And I'm like, no, no, no. I don't want to get too close.

He's like, don't worry. It's like chasing a dolphin. You're not going to catch me. Don't worry. So, I mean, I'm on this guy. I probably did, I probably did 9, 10 laps, came in, exhausted. I mean, it's so exhausting. Got out of the car, and I'm tired from the 9-10 laps.

And I'm telling him, I'm like, man, I want to see the fudge. I want to see the fudge. Because to me, I was on his bump. I mean, I was like inches away. And they're all dying laughing. I'm like, what are you guys laughing about? They're like, it's just. You're like two car legs behind the guy, but I swear I was on his ass the whole time.

But it's, it's, well, that's, that's fun. They have to do it. It's just such an adrenaline rush. That's usually the biggest part when people get in the driving school cars or they experience for the first time. They're so tense. They wear themselves out in a short amount of time. So it sounds like, sounds like you fell right into that category. As you look at the sport, you were, you were in it, you were out of it.

You've seen it from a lot of different. aspects. I know you talk about the charter, but what's the, what's your view on international? We're going to talk about this a lot on the show this week. We hear a lot of different things. What's the stance that you guys have? I'm of the belief that North America is great. I love Canada, Mexico, Mexico, United States. I think that's where NASCAR belongs. What's your opinion on the, on the international piece of us getting outside of the country more with NASCAR? I think it's interesting, and I think it's good to expand the knowledge and the interest in it. Is it necessary, though?

I don't know. It depends on what the OEMs are trying to accomplish and what NASCAR is trying to accomplish. I would tell you selfishly, from my standpoint, if you look at RAM, and really pretty much the same thing with Dodge. 95, 96% of our sales are in North America and the balance of it, majority of the balance of it is in South America. So I would tell you that the vast majority of my sales are in the U.S. and then expand it a little bit into North America. So from an investment, a return on investment, there's not a lot there for us to see an international component of it, other than if it makes, you know, the sport that much more attractive to advertisers, which then can trickle down in, to the teams and the OEMs themselves.

But from a pure fan-based standpoint, I'd like to have a customer base outside North America, but we don't at this point. Well, it's very intriguing with everything that you guys have going on. You know, I think when you look at the grid with a fourth manufacturer coming to the table, what do you think that does for other manufacturers that have been on the fence to say,

maybe we're interested, maybe you're not interested. Do you think that you guys, Ram coming back in, opens that door for people to say, okay, we're going to see how this goes and jump in? Or, you know, I know that there's been some other talks with some other manufacturers. Now that you guys have finally pulled the trigger and made this happen, do you think that moves a needle for anybody else? Well, I hope for the health of the sport and the growth of the sport, I hope it does. I mean, you can't speak for them.

I don't know who they are. And depending on who they are, it's a tough transition from, you know, the track to sales. It's easy for a domestic OEM to know that 50% of the fans drive a pickup trip, that's an easy transition. Maybe for some other OEMs, it's a little bit tougher. But the technology transfer or the story of technology, I think it's always been, and I think it will always be relevant. So do we have a slogan yet? I mean, do we have something that you're just going to just send the message to NASCAR fans? Is there anything that we need to know besides everything that we've heard so far?

No, not yet. It's funny, though, we talked about this. About a month ago, we changed our tagline. Taglines seem like such a benign thing, but they're really, really important in our business because they drive so many parts of our business and how we go to market with so many things. So we changed our tagline to nothing stops RAM. And then we followed that up with the launch or the return of the hemi. Then we followed that up with the announcement that we're coming back into NASCAR.

Then we followed it up with the new campaign this last weekend. And we got another announcement coming on Wednesday that dovetails perfectly into that. But if you think about it, that tagline fits perfectly with racing. It fits perfectly with NASCAR. It fits perfectly with how we're going to go back into the sport. All right. Well, last question. And we asked this to all the guests.

what was your first car that you bought and drove on the street or was given to you? What was it? Yeah, I can tell you every single thing about it down to how it smelled. I had, it's a long time ago. I'm not a young guy. I had $700. I had $700 that I could afford to spend. And I could have bought at the time.

It's so long ago, I could have bought a halfway decent car. But $700 didn't buy you an F-body. I wanted a GMF body. I wanted a Transan Firebird. And 700 bucks did not get you a good one. I mean, this thing was absolute garbage and had a 350 small block in it. And I wanted a big block, but this couldn't swing the big block. So made the deal with my dad, even though it had rusted out floorboards, made the deal with my dad that if I ever had a problem with the engine, I could put a big block in it.

So I ran that thing, three-quarters short oil, down the highways, as fast as I could, blue the motor. sorry, I don't know what happened. Motor's blowing. Next weekend, we were in the junk air. Catalina wagon, 455 big block, put it in the car. Still, they've rested floorboards, but man, I love that car. Well, Tim, always great stories. Well, Tim, I appreciate you taking the time today. We can't wait to see those RAM trucks back on the racetrack. We're so happy to have you in this sport and looking forward to cross and pass with you at the racetrack. So thank you for the time. Excellent. Thank you for having me out. Thank you.