Spire Motorsports and Rick Ware Racing are getting a jump start on the 2025 season.
The teams announced Friday at Bristol that RWR’s Justin Haley would drive the No. 7 car for Spire over the final seven races of the season while Corey LaJoie would drive the No. 51 for RWR the rest of the year. Each driver will compete in Saturday’s race at Bristol before making the switch.
Haley is set to continue with Spire in 2025 with Rodney Childers as his crew chief. Childers, currently the crew chief for Josh Berry at Stewart-Haas Racing, became a free agent when SHR announced that it was shutting down. Childers won the 2014 Cup Series title with Kevin Harvick and was Harvick’s crew chief for the entirety of the driver’s tenure at SHR.
LaJoie isn’t guaranteed a seat at RWR in 2025. Yet. He’s been reported to be the leading contender for the ride by multiple outlets. Spire announced over the summer that LaJoie would be leaving the team and his 2024 season has been underwhelming. LaJoie is 28th in the points standings, six spots behind rookie teammate Carson Hocever. Zane Smith, in a third Spire car, is 33rd in the standings.
Haley is 32nd in the standings with two top-10 finishes. His best finish on the season is a ninth at Darlington in the spring and a ninth at Gateway. LaJoie finished fourth in the Daytona 500 and scored the second-best finish of his season at Watkins Glen last week with an eighth-place run.
LaJoie has four top-five finishes in 264 career Cup Series races. All four have come at either Atlanta, Daytona or Talladega. The two top-10 finishes he’s scored at Darlington and Watkins Glen over the last three races are his first top 10s at a track that wasn’t Atlanta, Daytona or Talladega.
Haley, meanwhile, scored the only win for Spire in the team’s history. He scored a fluky win at the 2019 summer Daytona race when he stayed out during a caution flag in the rain-delayed race. Lightning struck within an eight-mile radius after Haley took over the lead and the race never restarted.
