When Fiat took over stewardship of the great American car company Chrysler, one of the first things they did was spin off the Ram pickup trucks into its own brand. So while Ford and GM were busy getting rid of excess divisions, Chrysler was adding them (at the cost of the Dodge brand.) Chrysler wasn’t done with just adding Ram though; Fiat has made a somewhat less-than-triumphant return to America, and the SRT brand now claims the Viper as its own.

So it wasn’t entirely unexpected when Chrysler announced that Dodge Motorsports would be renamed SRT Motorsports, reports Chrysler’s own blog.

The reasoning for this is simple; to bring all of Chrysler’s NASCAR motorsports endeavors under one umbrella. This means no more separate motorsports action for the Dodge and Ram brands; all will be united under the SRT Motorsports moniker. This will no doubt spread beyond NASCAR though, as the SRT brand gets its own stand-alone model, the 2013 Viper, which is not exactly “specced” for NASCAR competition.

Chrysler also announced a new Director of the SRT brand, Beth Paretta. Paretta comes over from Aston Martin, and was once named one of the Top 10 “Secret People” in the automotive industry. Will she help build up the SRT brand, and is SRT Motorsports the right direction to move Chrysler’s racing motorsports endeavors forward? We’ll find out soon enough.