Season Preview: Lindley To Lead Caruth, No. 88 Team on New Journey in 2026

Coming off a season during which he led the No. 88 team to 11 victories and a berth in the Championship 4, Mardy Lindley and his team at JR Motorsports has a lot to live up to in 2026.

Connor Zilisch won 10 races on the way to the championship race, and Kyle Larson filled in for an injured Zilisch by winning at Texas Motor Speedway while Zilisch was recovering from a hard crash the week before at Talladega Superspeedway.

This season, the bulk of the events will see young Rajah Caruth in the No. 88 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet, with appearances from Larson and fellow Hendrick Motorsports drivers William Byron, Chase Elliott and Alex Bowman.

Caruth will contest the bulk of the races (23) on his way farther up the ladder, while the HMS drivers will split the remaining 10 among them.

Lindley’s experience with Zilisch will be a boon to the young Caruth as he takes on the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series season with a proven team behind him.

88 TEAM ROSTER: Crew chief: Mardy Lindley; Lead Engineer: Tanner Naumann; Second Engineer: Gage Painter; Car Chief: Pat Martin; Mechanic: Kyle Stevens; Mechanic: James Craig; Spotter: Josh Williams; Truck Driver: Brian Salas.

Lindley’s work with Zilisch drew a lot of eyes in dominating the 2025 season, and this season he will turn that focus to another talented young driver in Caruth.

“There’s a little bit of the unknown this season,” Lindley said. “We had some track time with Rajah, which I thought went pretty well. We had a lot of time with him on the oval stuff and the road-course stuff is in progress. We are making gains and strides in that area as well.”

EXPERIENCE TELLS: Having Cup Series stars like Larson, Byron, Elliott and Bowman in the fold will help Caruth even when he’s not in the car, Lindley said. The ultimate goal, however, is to get Caruth there as well.

“I have a good relationship with Larson, I know William pretty well and Chase and Alex are really good as well,” Lindley said. “I think that those races should go really well for us. The goal is to not lose the races with Cup drivers in them, but the bigger goal is to get Rajah into Victory Lane.”

NEW SEASON, NEW PLAN: Coming off a monster season like 2025 was for the No. 88 team leaves Lindley with a focus of keeping up the momentum with a new driver. “This time last year, it was a whole different deal,” Lindley said. “This time this year, it’s a different deal. Last year at this time, I knew that the potential to do great things was there with Connor, but I didn’t know if it would come to pass. I didn’t know that it was going to come that fast and that often. He struggled the first 10 races, but you could see a glimpse of, if it ever clicked, it was going to be good, and it was.”

In 2026, that whole scenario will play out again with Caruth, he said. “Looking at Rajah now, the potential is there for him to do great things like win 11 races again, but I’m just saying it’s hard to keep that kind of pace up with the competition we have.”

YOUNG DRIVERS: Lindley’s experience as a crew chief and driver play a big role in the team’s success, and he’ll use that to help Caruth along his path to the higher levels. Bringing young drivers along is a matter of teaching, he said. “They just have to be able to listen well and be teachable,” Lindley said. “Once that happens, they can take that and craft their own skill level and our own race craft from that end and make it even better.

“They have to do that. They have to do the right things right and the young kids that have the most success are the ones that pick up on it. And then, you know, they take it and they craft their own skill level and our own race craft from that and make it even better.”

NOT LETTING THE GRASS GROW: After a season like 2025, there’s always the danger of expecting the following year to proceed along the same lines. Lindley isn’t having any of it.

“We’ve done extensive work,” he said. “We know where we’re at as a race team and I feel like we’re in pretty good shape, but it’s going to make a difference how the cars drive for sure. But the first 10 races, that kind of tells you what you’re going to get. If you look at our first 10 races last year, it didn’t go too well. We were back at one time, we were like 25^th in points. We gained it back in a hurry, we gained all the way back to the lead, but it took significant effort to do that. It’s real important for us to start. We have to be strong and be able to maintain that week to week. Consistency is going to have to be a big part of the season.”

DEVELOPMENT IS THE KEY: Caruth’s maiden voyage in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series will be the focus, and the young driver’s development will be the key, Lindley said.

“He’s good,” Lindley said. “He’s a great kid. I mean, you can’t ask for a nicer person, a more dedicated person to getting better and learning. He’s got some experience in these cars, which helps, but it’s time now. This is his big opportunity, and we’re going to do all we can as a race team to ensure success for him.

“You know, if it doesn’t come quite as fast as we’d like it to, it’s not going to be for lack of effort on anybody’s part, including his. That’s the great thing about working at JR Motorsports. This place is like a machine. The cars are great. All the shop guys and the people that build these cars do a great job, there’s a great system here and it’s a blessing to work here.”

CONFIDENCE ABOUNDS: Lindley has been there and done that in motorsports, and he has high praise for both JR Motorsports as a whole and his group in particular.

“I’m confident because I really believe in this race team,” he said. “This team has been with me for years. I trust every one of them, I trust this company, the shop guys, building these race cars and we have great engines from Hendrick Motorsports.”