Spire Motorsports is undergoing a major shakeup as they gear up for a strong 2025 Cup Series season, starting with a surprising decision to part ways with longtime driver Corey LaJoie. Reflecting on his exit, LaJoie shared, “I take a lot of satisfaction from having an integral part of building Spire into a respectable team on the grid, but unfortunately, the future won’t involve me.”

The news shocked many fans, especially since LaJoie helped Spire debut in the Cup Series back in 2021, finishing 9th in his first Daytona 500 with the team. While he was expected to stay with the team until the season’s end, he’s been replaced earlier than planned. Spire Motorsports opted to swap LaJoie with Justin Haley, who will now take over the #7 car, sending LaJoie to Rick Ware Racing. Despite the early exit, he seems optimistic about the change, viewing it as a fresh opportunity to turn around what has been a tough season.

Corey LaJoie opens up on joining Rick Ware Racing

In the 29 races, Corey LaJoie has only managed a single top-5 finish! LaJoie, since making his Cup Series debut, has failed to produce the runs that he made in the ARCA series, where he had 9 wins in both (East and West). So far in the Cup, he’s made 265 starts and managed four top-5s and eleven top-10s. His average finish has been 25.59 so far. This is the reason why Spire had him go. As since joining the team, he’s bagged only four top-5s and eight top-10 finishes in the 4 years.

Naturally, he’s upset over his breakup with the team. After all, he was instrumental in growing the young team in Tier 1. Talking about finally leaving them, on his podcast episode of “Stacking Pennies”, he said, “Also bittersweet that you leave somewhere that you’ve grown up with. It’s like breaking up with your high school girlfriend. It’s not gonna last forever.” 

For the remainder of the 2024 season, Corey LaJoie will be driving Haley’s #51 ride. Maybe LaJoie can give RWR their first top-5 finish of the season as Haley too hasn’t had the best season so far. In the 29 races, he’s only managed two top 10s and is currently in the 32nd position. Many have said that RWR is a downgrade for LaJoie since it’s much a smaller team compared to Spire. However, LaJoie is stoked to be with them, as he recently revealed.

He said, “I think that them allowing me to go to the 51 helps me and my career progress. Further it goes, but now I get to earn my chance and integrate with that team and work with Chris Lawson, Tommy Baldwin and Robby Benton and Rick Ware. Like there’s a lot of motivated hungry guys that have won a lot of races over there so I’m excited to go race with.”

The RWR move might prove to be good for him since all his career so far LaJoie has spent with backmarker teams and that’s where he’s been most comfortable. According to NASCAR Analyst Eric Estepp, “That’s where LaJoie seems to fit best. BK racing to Go FAS to Spire in its early years no one expects you to contend fans will cheer when they see you run up near the front at the occasional Super Speedway race, treat your sponsors well sign every autograph be The Lovable Underdog Story.”

Be it Randy Humphrey Racing in 2014, where he started his career as a part-time driver. Then moving to BK racing in 2017 and ran his first full season. Post which he went to TriStar Motorsports in 2018. And eventually, he spent two seasons (2019, and 2020) at Go FAS Racing before joining Spire. It might be a good move for LaJoie, but what about Haley? NASCAR Insiders weigh in.

NASCAR Insiders on the LaJoie-Haley swap

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Justin Haley, before coming to the Cup Series, had immense success in the Xfinity Series. In 202o he even managed to reach the final four, ultimately finishing 3rd. In the past, he’s proven that he can run top-10 with good equipment, from 2021 to 2023, with Kaulig Racing, he managed ten top-10 finishes and four top-5s. So a move to Spire will give him the correct opportunity to nurture his talent. However, NASCAR Insider, Brett Griffin, thinks otherwise, since the teams are not allowed to swap crew chiefs.

On the recent Door Bumper Clear episode he said, “The only thing that I’ll say for Justin Haley that I think is not on the positive side and I think there’s a ton, tons of things that are, is you’re going to Spire [Motorsports] without Rodney [Childers], and you’re going to Spire [Motorsports] without OEM [Original Equipment Manufacturers, Ford in this case] support.”

NASCAR’s celebrated crew chief Rodney Childers, is also set to join Spire in 2025, so if Haley gets a good run in the last 7 races, Spire might retain him, and pair him up with the championship-caliber crew chief. So, if Spire Motorsports signs Justin Haley for 2025 and RWR sticks with Corey LaJoie, then this move makes sense to Griffin.

“But regardless I still think from a business perspective it’s brilliant to make the move, why wouldn’t you? Corey’s gonna be in that car [51] it sounds like next year, Justin’s obviously in the 7 next year, why wouldn’t you give them a ten-race head start? Neither one of them are in the playoff,” Griffin added. So these races basically give both a free hand to show their best race craft to continue long-term partnerships.

What do you think of the swap?