In his first full season with Spire Motorsports, Justin Haley sits 31st in the points standings. (Krista Jasso / Getty Images)
Justin Haley won’t return to Spire Motorsports for the 2026 season, the NASCAR Cup Series team announced on Tuesday after a summer of debating his future.
Haley’s status with Spire beyond this season has been unsettled for some time, with team management contemplating whether to replace the 26-year-old with a driver who can better meet the performance expectations of a team that has invested heavily and hopes to become a consistently competitive Cup team.
The decision comes during an underwhelming 2025 season for Haley, who was in his first full season with Spire and joined the organization with great fanfare. He has struggled to match the pace of teammates Carson Hocevar and Michael McDowell, and his performance continued to lag even after Spire jettisoned championship-winning crew chief Rodney Childers in April. The team had initially paired Childers with Haley, thinking the veteran crew chief would be a good fit with a driver once considered one of the sport’s rising stars.
But as Haley, who sits 31st in the points standings, continued to produce underwhelming results, his future with the team became more tenuous.
“This is a decision that was not taken lightly,” Spire co-owner Jeff Dickerson said in a statement. “Justin has been a member of the Spire family since he was a teenager. We’ve watched Justin grow from a young driver trying to make his mark in the sport to a proven winner. He helped strengthen our organization into what it is today. He made us winners and returned home after forging his own path in the Cup Series. Justin is the embodiment of a true racer who has quietly become a respected competitor within the NASCAR garage and will be an incredible asset to his next team.”
Spire did not name a replacement for Haley as driver of its No. 7 Chevrolet. Daniel Suárez is considered the leading candidate to take that seat, multiple sources briefed on the discussions told The Athletic.
Suárez, 33, has already announced he is leaving Trackhouse Racing at the end of the current season and has spoken confidently that he would secure another full-time opportunity to remain in Cup next year. His name has been linked with Spire for the past several weeks.
A Suárez-Spire union makes sense for both sides. Suárez would land with a team that has the potential to win races — something he has stated is important to him — while Spire would get a veteran driver who’s also a two-time race winner and highly motivated to prove himself after an up-and-down past few years at Trackhouse.
Oct 15, 2025
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