Kyle Strickler plans to continue his partnership with Austin Kirkpatrick and his AK Racecars team and race more late models moving into 2026.

Strickler announced a partnership with AK Racecars back in August ahead of the North South 100 at Florence. He shared on Facebook, “After a solid shakedown and test session last night, we are excited to launch our partnership with Austin Kirkpatrick and AK Racecars with this weekend at the North South 100!”

Strickler spoke with StockCarReport.com following the conclusion of the World Finals and reveals the partnership plans to continue into 2026, “Next year we definitely want to do some more late model racing and we’re starting to get a bunch of guys together to help out. I had a bunch of my NASCAR buddies to come over and some new NASCAR guys that just were old dirt fans and wanted to come out and help. Getting a decent crew together to help and then go run some of these big regional races and then also go run the big races I love to go to. The Eldoras, and the Charlottes, and the Volusias, and the stuff like that. Hopefully, we can put some more late model racing on the plate and still hit some of those really big mod races.”

When asked if he might run a regional tour like Hunt the Front or Southern Nationals, he shared, “I’m not real sure yet. Like I said a lot of it depends on funding. So we met some really good people this weekend so hopefully some of those deals will pull through and we’ll get some sponsors together, and get some money together, and we can go do some traveling.”

“These late models are a lot of work and the fields are so tight ’cause everybody is really good when you get to this level and everybody’s got enough money to go racing. You gotta have the funding and you gotta have a lot of good people behind you. We’ve got the people at the top with AK and all his buddies. We’ve got a lot of information that it takes. Now, we’re just trying to get some funding together to go do some testing and get ready for next year and hopefully come out of the gate hot.

Strickler shared more about his plans to Kyle McFadden at DirtonDirt.com as well, “I don’t think a tour just yet. I have a lot of good people behind me: G-Style Transports and G-Man (Tony Girolamo) in North Dakota has been with me for a long time. Charlie Donaldson and Charlie’s been with me since the beginning down here.”

“It’s all about going to places that I really enjoy going to,” he continued. “I definitely would not rule out a tour. It all comes down to funding and these Late Models, especially if you’re going to run a tour, I mean, you can bleed money. I mean, when we were trying to do it full-time with Charlie and G-Man, man, we though we were spending money mod race. Late Models, these guys spend a ton of money.”

Since partnering with AK Racecars, Strickler finished 13th and 10th in the North South 100 prelims at Florence. While he didn’t make the Saturday night feature he did win the non-qualifier race. At Eldora for the World 100, he made the feature and finished in 21st. In the FloRacing Night in America race at Volunteer Speedway he finished 12th in B-Main 1. Finally, this past weekend, he made the feature on Thursday night, but broke a valve spring and ran in the #69 AK Racecars finishing in 24th. On Friday night, he was the first one on the outside looking in, finishing 3rd in his B-Main. He finished 7th in his heat on Saturday night.

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