Spire Motorsports and Rick Ware Racing are swapping NASCAR Cup Series drivers effectively immediately next weekend at Kansas Speedway.
In other words, Justin Haley is moving from Rick Ware Racing to the Spire Motorsports No. 7 and Corey Lajoie is moving from Spire to the Rick Ware Racing No. 51 for the final seven races of the season.
Haley will drive the No. 7 next year, pairing with championship winning crew chief Rodney Childers, who is currently finishing his tenure at Stewart-Haas Racing’s No. 4 team. For now, Haley will pair with crew chief Ryan Sparks, who will move onto a full-time competition director role at Spire next season.
The announcement was made on Friday at Bristol Motor Speedway in a joint press conference featuring the two driver, RWR president Robby Benton and Spire co-owner Jeff Dickerson.
Lajoie does not yet have a deal for 2025 and the next seven races are an opportunity for both parties to see if they can make this work, and to allow other opportunities to mutually present themselves as well.
The most telling line came from Dickerson, who recalled a conversation this week with Benton, where the latter said, “I think I can get more out of Corey than you, and just as friend, not in an ugly way, but it stuck with me.”
Benton said this all came together in the last 36 hours.
Haley joined Ware this season, inking a multiyear deal, but this marks a return to a company that gave him his Cup Series debut in 2019 and also his first win in the rain shortened race at Daytona that July.
Lajoie had been at Spire since the 2021 season, having signed a multiyear extension in August 2023 but revealed the two parties would part ways at the end of this season.
After a really consistent 2023, Lajoie is 28th in the standings with just three top-10s numerous crashes on his resume while Haley is 32nd in the underfunded car with two top-10s.
Jeff Green and Steve Park effectively swapped rides in 2003. Park was fired by Dale Earnhardt Inc. Green had just been fired by Richard Childress Racing and they ended up in each other’s former cars.
This seemed far more mutually amicable, down to the joint press conference.
Kurt Busch and Regan Smith traded rides in 2012 when Busch left for Furniture Row Racing, where he would drive full-time in 2013, while Smith left Furniture Row to Phoenix Racing where Busch was driving that season.
In 1996, John Andretti left the Kranefuss-Haas No. 37 for Cale Yarbrough’s No. 98 and Jeremy Mayfield went the other direction.