An ownership change has shaken up NASCAR even before the 2025 season gets underway in roughly three months. JTG Daugherty has rebranded. They’re going by Hyak Motorsports now, with former owners Tad and Jodi Geshickter no longer in the picture. 

5x NBA All-Star Brad Daugherty will keep his role as co-owner, part of the new consortium. That group also includes principal team owner Gordon Smith, President of Hyak Maritime LLC, Ernie Cope, and Mark Hughes. They will be without the financial backing of longtime JTG Daugherty sponsors, Kroger, who are taking their brand across the grid to Brad Keselowski’s RFK Racing. Essentially, “a bigger team (with) more opportunities to frankly go out and win some races,” as per Kroger executive, Brent Cox. The grandstands suggest that might be a veiled dig at the newly rebranded race team. However, Brad Daugherty, one of the few guys with the inside scoop on the entire situation, tells us all a different story.

Brad Daugherty sets the record straight on Kroger split

First, for those who don’t know, Michael Jordan isn’t the first NBA player to own a NASCAR organization. That distinction belongs to Brad Daugherty, who spent his entire career playing center for the Cleveland Cavaliers. He was born in Black Mountain, North Carolina. Daugherty wore the number 43 in tribute to one of his favorite athletes, Richard Petty. After an early retirement, the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame inductee ventured into NASCAR with Truck Series team Liberty Racing.

That team shut down after the 1999 season. But almost a decade later, Daugherty joined Tad and Jodi Geshickter at JTG Daugherty Racing. In 2010, the North Carolina-based team signed with Kroger, the $43 billion retail giant, who remained the team’s primary sponsor, until this year. As Daugherty explained in a video interview on SiriusXM NASCAR radio, “We had a great relationship for 15 years with Kroger, as a partner as a brand partner. They did a tremendous job… With that being said… It wasn’t the partnership, that everyone thinks that they were just writing these massive checks to let us go racing. That’s not how it worked.”

“I mean, they came in and they handled the lion’s share, and were the main issuer of funds for us to race, but we still had to go and earn money to partner with them in order to make our race-team work… I saw some comments that were made that, they were deciding to go in a different direction, because they wanted a chance to win. Well, that’s not all true.” – Daugherty asserted disregarding Brent Cox’s narrative. “We had the opportunity to rekindle that partnership. But we divided our company in a way and separated our company in a way that we wanted a fresh start over on the Hyak side.”

Daugherty maintained that “from the outside” walking away from the opportunity doesn’t look like “the wisest thing to do.” However, the new ownership group was heading in a different direction anyway, and parting with Kroger could also mean they could find new brands that potentially want to enter the sport. “I just wanted to clear that up because there’s so many comments and there’s a lot of innuendo…” stated the new Hyak Motorsports co-owner, sounding eager to adapt to his new partners. These are some exciting times for Daugherty. At one point, some sources even speculated that he had given up his share at JTG Daugherty. Rumors roared louder about a complete takeover of JTG’s NASCAR operations from an outside group.

Nothing like that ever happened, but the stories remain. Brad Daugherty has one of his own to share from his analyst days at NASCAR on NBC. “You know, it’s funny. I was with Dale Earnhardt Jr when he was still working at NBC one day. We were coming through, and the rumors were spreading about, and I was sitting there with him. I looked over at him and said, ‘I hear you’re gonna buy our race team.’ And he started laughing. Because we worked together every day, and that was never true. That was never true… Kevin Harvick’s not buying our race team, that’s not true… We’re going in a different direction, and we’re hoping at the end of the day, we’re stronger for it and a better business that can race harder, race smarter, and be viable for the next two decades in this sport.”

Hopefully, Hyak Motorsports will be better for it. Daugherty’s connections, built tirelessly around the NASCAR circuits over the years, can only help the new collective. However, their rebrand is still in its earlier stages, and no sponsor details for 2025 have become public. Maybe the Kroger deal could leave a hole for Hyak. But as for their benefactors, RFK Racing, the future looks brighter than ever going forward.

Meanwhile, Brad K balances Kroger’s business goals with Victory Lane dreams

RFK Racing is gearing up for a major expansion in 2025, adding a third car to its lineup with Ryan Preece set to pilot the #60 Ford Mustang Dark Horse. They’ll be leasing a charter from Rick Ware Racing to make that happen for now. But make no mistake, for team president Steve Newmark, “the vision is that a third car is a permanent state and a permanent condition for RFK,” as quoted by Sportsnaut. In an official release from the team, Newmark thanked Tad and Jodi Geshickter, “without which [RFK] wouldn’t be in the position of growing with a third car in 2025 and beyond.” 

Owner-driver, Brad Keselowski, agrees with the idea but understands that Kroger expects success. And for Brad K, that means, “We’ve got to go out there and win.” The #6 driver, who now has three teammates (or one new employee, whatever way you wish to look at it), confirms RFK is, “committed to doing that, but we also have to do a great job delivering off the track with how we take care of Kroger.” He then revealed, “Steve and the whole corporate team has the master plan to execute that” vision.

“They’re much more versed in it than I am. I’m off trying to make sure we can win. They’re off trying to make sure we can sell those cases, so it’s a one-two punch,” presumed the 2012 NASCAR Cup Series champion. With this Kroger sponsorship, all three cars from his race team will feature dedicated paint schemes throughout the year. And talking about Ryan Preece, and #17 driver Chris Buescher, both have already driven with Kroger in their previous stints at JTG Daugherty before RFK.

This looks like a definitive win-win situation for Brad Keselowski’s race team. But on the flip side, will JTG Daugherty bounce back stronger from losing a big-time backer? Ironically, only time will tell. But if Brad Daugherty’s words hold, Hyak Motorsports has every chance to outdo the bones they’ve been building on for the 2025 NASCAR season.