Earlier this year Corey LaJoie announced that he would not be returning to Spire Motorsports next season to drive the number seven car.
On Friday afternoon at Bristol Motor Speedway, Spire Motorsports and Rick Ware Racing announced a driver swap that would be making an “an old-fashioned player trade” that would take effect after the Night Race at Bristol. Rick Ware Racing president Robby Benton, Spire co-owner Jeff Dickerson, Corey LaJoie, and Justin Haley were all on hand for the announcement.
Dickerson announced that Justin Haley will be the driver of the number seven car next season with Rodney Childers as the crew chief. Rick Ware Racing noted that they will announce driver plans for next year at the end of the season.
Beginning at Kansas, Justin Haley will take over the driving duties of the Spire Motorsports number seven car and Corey LaJoie will take over in the Rick Ware Racing number 51 car.
For Justin Haley, it will be a return to Spire Motorsports; Spire signed Haley in 2019 when he made his Cup Series debut. Haley noted, “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. 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.”
Michael McDowell will also be joining Spire Motorsports next season.
Spire signed Corey LaJoie to drive the number seven car in 2021. Calling his impending departure “bittersweet”, LaJoie said, “it’s a band of brothers because you are forged just in the trenches of Sunday racing. 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.”