Parker Kligerman will step out of the broadcast booth and back into a racecar next month at Texas Motor Speedway.
WELCOME, N.C. -- Parker Kligerman will step out of the broadcast booth and back into a racecar next month at Texas Motor Speedway.
Kaulig Racing named Kligerman to its "Free Agent" No. 25 Ram 1500 for the May 1 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Texas Motor Speedway. It'll mark the CW's NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series analyst's first NASCAR start since the Oct. 17 Truck race at Talladega Superspeedway for Henderson Motorsports' No. 75 Chevrolet.
Kligerman has 125 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series starts to his name, including 64 starts with Henderson Motorsports. In fact, the Texas race will mark his first Truck race away from that team since 2016.
Just as much as there is something new to Kligerman's Texas start, there is something very familiar. Kligerman will reunite with Ram for the first time since 2012. He raced a Ram for Brad Keselowski Racing up until the Aug. 4, 2012 race at Pocono Raceway, after which he parted ways with the team.
Kligerman has three wins in NASCAR, all in Trucks. He won with Red Horse Racing at Talladega in fall of 2012 and with Henderson Motorsports at Talladega in fall of 2017 and Mid-Ohio in summer of 2022.
The three wins comes with an asterisk. At Daytona last February, Kligerman won but was disqualified after his truck failed post-race inspection.
Then, in August, Kligerman drove Connor Zilisch's No. 88 Chevrolet to a NOAPS win at Daytona International Speedway. However, because Zilisch started the race, he was credited with the win and not Kligerman.
Kligerman raced full-time in NASCAR in NOAPS. With Big Machine Racing, he amassed 13 top-five finishes, 33 top-10s and a pair of 10th-place points finishes while driving the No. 48 Chevrolet in 2023 and 2024.
In fall of 2024, Kligerman almost earned a NOAPS win of his own at the Charlotte Roval. Coming to the white flag, he led the race but fell just feet shy of reaching the start-finish line before the caution flew, meaning he had to face an overtime restart where he finished sixth instead.
Previous drivers in Kaulig's No. 25 'Free Agent' truck include Tony Stewart at Daytona, Ty Dillon at EchoPark Atlanta and Rockingham, Corey LaJoie at Darlington Colin Braun at Circuit of the Americas and Carson Ferguson at Bristol. Braun earned the best finish for the truck, finishing ninth at St. Pete.
Through five races, Kaulig's Ram Trucks program finished inside the top-11 in every race.