First weekend on track.
Project Never Lift is the next-generation Hemi we’re co-developing with Mopar Direct Connection for late model competition. The engine isn’t ready for the green flag yet. Before it is, the team has work to do.
On Saturday, May 9, 2026, the No. 25 test car runs the shakedown at Florence Speedway. Dylan “Mamba” Smith driving. First time the team operates together at speed.
Florence Speedway. Saturday, May 9, 2026.
PROJECT: Never Lift — co-development with Mopar Direct Connection DATE: Saturday, May 9, 2026 VENUE: Florence Speedway DRIVER: Dylan "Mamba" Smith CAR: No. 25 — test car ENGINE: Carry-over (the new Hemi is not in this car) FORMAT: Shakedown STATUS: Pre-event
The number isn’t random.
Twenty-five is Lee Faulk’s number. Lee Faulk Racing has been our team-side development partner from the start of this project, with Michael Faulk leading development on Project Never Lift. Florence is the test car’s first weekend wearing the program’s livery. Carrying the 25 is a small acknowledgment that we did not get here alone.
Lee Faulk Racing operates out of Mooresville. Their driver development program is its own arc. Ours starts here, in their orbit, and goes its own direction from this weekend forward.
Co-developed. Certified. Not finished.
We are co-developing the next-generation Hemi with Mopar Direct Connection — Stellantis’s performance parts program — for late model competition. The 5.7L Dodge V8 is the platform. Active development. Active certification. Real engineering with a real OEM partner.
Lee Faulk Racing is the team-side development partner. Sanctioning officials have visited the program at LFR. We were on the floor when Five-Star body components for the Dodge late model were run through the wind tunnel. None of this is a press release. It is what is happening this year.
When the engine is ready, it will see a track. Not before. The calendar does not get a vote on that.
A shakedown is a question, not an answer.
Florence is not the engine debut. Florence is the team debut. Cold pit stops. Radio choreography. Tire pressures across a session. Driver-engineer comms in a real environment. The hundred small things that have to work before any new engine matters.
What we learn at Florence is what the new Hemi does not have to learn from scratch when it arrives. That is the point.
The name is the program. Not the day.
In a corner, “never lift” means commitment. Across a development cycle, it means the same thing. We are not lifting on this engine, this partnership, this team, or the public record of how it gets built.
On any given Saturday, including the one at Florence, lifting is sometimes the right call. A shakedown’s job is to find limits — including ours. If something on the test car asks us to lift, we will. The point is the arc. Not the lap.
We start at the bottom rung. On purpose.
Late Model Stock. CARS Tour. Everything above that — ARCA, the NASCAR national series — is its own engineering problem with its own rules, chassis, tires, and competition. We are not promising a destination. We are starting at Late Model Stock and the CARS Tour, with the new Hemi, and where it goes next depends on what we learn.
An honest plan is shorter than an aspirational one.
Process, not pace.
We publish what we learn about the way we work. We do not publish what makes us fast on a given Saturday. Internals stay internal. Process is public.
That line will hold against a slow news week and against a competitive one. It is the only version of transparency that survives a season.
Follow the build.
The build log is the engine program in public. AI Programs is the simulation work that runs alongside it. Both update as Florence approaches and after.