Kasey Kahne will join Spire Motorsports to compete full time in the 2027 NASCAR FedEx Freight Truck Series, driving the team‘s No. 77 Chevrolet Silverado RST, the team announced Wednesday.
Kahne, an 18-time NASCAR Cup Series winner, will return to full-time NASCAR competition for the first time since 2018, when health issues forced him to step away.
RELATED: 2027 Truck Series schedule | Current Truck standings
Now 46, Kahne was named one of NASCAR’s 75 Greatest Drivers in 2023 for his success across the sport’s three national series, including crown-jewel victories in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway (2006, 2008, 2012) and the 2017 Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
The idea to return to full-time NASCAR competition came from Spire co-owner Jeff Dickerson when he and Kahne met earlier this year at the Knoxville Nationals in Iowa.
“I was pretty surprised when it happened,” Kahne said Wednesday in a Zoom teleconference. “We’d actually just finished an owner’s meeting for the High Limit Series, and me and Jeff were talking, and he brought that up. He had told me a story that him and Carson (Hocevar) were there the week before at 360 Nationals watching the racing and trying to figure out who they were going to put in one of the trucks for a full-time season, and then have the other truck. Yeah, he just asked me and, like I said, pretty surprised.
“Once I thought about it for a little while, this is like a really good opportunity for someone who hasn’t been in the sport for a period of time. To get in with a really solid truck organization, Spire Motorsports, who’s strong in all motorsports, yeah I just thought it was really cool and (I’m) excited.”
In 2025, Kahne returned to NASCAR competition for the first time in seven years, driving the No. 33 Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing at Rockingham Speedway in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series. Kahne was running fifth when he was collected in a crash early in the contest but rallied for a 14th-place finish.
In addition to his Cup Series success and eight wins in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, Kahne is a five-time Truck Series winner despite making just six starts in the series. His lone non-win came in 2010 at Pocono Raceway, where he finished second.
Since departing NASCAR full time in 2018 after competing in 25 of 36 Cup races, the Enumclaw, Washington, native has returned to his dirt-racing roots in sprint cars, including a full-season campaign in the Interstate Batteries High Limit Racing series last year. A six-time World of Outlaws champion as a team owner, Kahne earned his first career World of Outlaws sprint car win in May 2026 at Williams Grove Speedway.
MORE: Watch NASCAR video highlights
Ahead of his return to NASCAR in 2025, Kahne said his health was “in a good place because I don’t do this all the time. I don’t do the long races, the heat.” While Truck Series races are longer than sprint car races, they are notably shorter than their O‘Reilly Auto Parts Series and Cup Series counterparts.
“The big thing is the short races,” Kahne said of returning to Truck Series competition. “I could always make it in the Cup car. Halfway point (of the season) is when it started really kicking in as the season went, and there’s no breaks. By July, August, it just keeps adding up. The final one at Darlington, I mean, was just too much built up, could not recover, and that’s where my body was. Just knowing that these races are shorter, a lot of night races, weekends off in between on some of them, just a completely different schedule than what we had going on back then. So, yeah, I think that’ll fit me really well.”
Following his O’Reilly appearance at Rockingham, Kahne was asked if he would consider more NASCAR racing moving forward: “I don’t know about more in the future, but I’m really glad I did this.”
Kahne‘s full-time return will begin Feb. 19 in the 2027 season opener at Daytona International Speedway.
Contributing: Staff Report