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September 20, 2024

Spire, Rick Ware Racing swap Corey LaJoie, Justin Haley for remainder of 2024 season


BRISTOL, Tenn. – Spire Motorsports and Rick Ware Racing announced Friday that the two organizations will swap drivers Justin Haley and Corey LaJoie, starting with next weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Kansas Speedway on Sept. 29 (3 p.m. ET, USA, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).

LaJoie will take over the RWR No. 51 Ford, and Haley will slide into the No. 7 Spire Chevrolet for the final seven races of the season in what team representatives termed “an old-fashioned player trade.” The news was announced Friday at Bristol Motor Speedway in a joint news conference with Rick Ware Racing president Robby Benton, Spire co-owner Jeff Dickerson, and both drivers.

Saturday’s Bass Pro Shops Night Race (7 ET, USA, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App) will be the last event for each driver in their current rides. Dickerson said that Haley will be the No. 7 team’s driver in 2025, pairing with incoming crew chief Rodney Childers; Benton indicated that the Ware group will reassess its plans for next season after the final seven races.

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Haley joined the Rick Ware-owned team this season after the organization announced signing him to a multiyear deal in July 2023. The 25-year-old driver’s partnership with Spire marks a return to the organization that gave him his Cup Series debut in 2019 when he landed his first premier-series victory in just his third career start at Daytona International Speedway.

Spire has made big moves in the last 12 months, purchasing Kyle Busch Motorsports, signing veteran Michael McDowell for 2025 and bringing in a championship-winning crew chief in Childers next season. Haley said those conversations about a potential shift started in earnest near the two-week midsummer break in the Cup Series schedule.

“Monday’s a new page for me, kind of back to where I started my first Cup Series career races and spent a lot of time there while I was racing Xfinity, doing both,” said Haley, who sits 32nd in the Cup Series points with a pair of top 10s in 2024. “So yeah, when Jeff Dickerson called me with this opportunity, presented it, I knew it was something that gave me a little bit more long-term stability and a good path for the future.”

LaJoie, 32, has been with Spire since the start of the 2021 campaign. He signed a multiyear extension in August 2023 but announced in late July he would not return to the No. 7 Chevy next season. LaJoie called the pending departure “bittersweet,” considering the bonds he’s built during the last three-plus years.

“It’s a band of brothers because you are forged just in the trenches of Sunday racing,” said LaJoie, 28th in the Cup Series standings entering Bristol. “Those guys have inspired and provided for me an incredible platform, and I’m excited for some clarity over what my future might look like to finish the rest of the year with Robbie and Rick and the entire group over there. It’s unprecedented. It’s going to be interesting to just change over seats, but at the end of the day, I can’t see what the number on the side of the car is, so I’m going to drive that thing just like I stole it each and every week and try to keep the wheels pointing in same direction and see where it all shakes out from there.”

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Benton did not shed greater light on how RWR’s two-car roster might take shape for next season, except to say that both the Nos. 15 and 51 entries will be on the Cup Series grid in 2025. Haley has driven the No. 51 Ford in all 28 races so far, and the No. 15 Mustang has been split among Kaz Grala, Cody Ware and Riley Herbst.

Benton said that the final seven-race stretch will be telling.

“We still think the world of Justin. He’s helped us tremendously this year to build RWR to what it is, and to make it attractive enough for someone like Corey to want to come here and get a shot,” Benton said. “So what we’re trying to do is take advantage of an opportunity that I think helps everyone. For us, it gives us the last part of the season to evaluate how well we work together. I think we would be foolish not to lean into the opportunity to work with somebody like Corey, but we need to make sure that we can do what we need to do together, right? And that’s the unique opportunity we can take in these last seven races.”

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