As if NASCAR free agency couldn’t get any weirder this season, it now has a bow-tie-shaped wrench thrown in the middle of it.
On Thursday, Spire Motorsports announced that Corey LaJoie would not return in 2025, opening the door for the team to put a new driver in the No. 7 car to be paired with Rodney Childers.
With the team losing a veteran driver in LaJoie, what if it were to bring another veteran driver to the team — rather than a win-less journeyman, however, what if a two-time champion took the reins of Spire’s flagship entry?
It’s no secret that Kyle Busch’s 2024 season has been akin to Dante’s Inferno. With Richard Childress Racing sinking further into mediocrity with every passing week, it can’t be easy for one of the most fiery, driven competitors in NASCAR history to be content with a top-15 run.
With Spire showing signs of improvement, as well as bringing on Childers, LaJoie’s departure could be the first domino to fall in what would be one of the wildest NASCAR free-agent moves of all time: Kyle Busch leaving the ruins of RCR to join a young, flourishing Spire.
Busch is signed through 2025, but Spire has proved willing to open up its checkbook when it feels the situation calls for it. Signing Childers, who is revered as the best crew chief in the Cup garage, couldn’t have been cheap. Nor could partnerships with Gainbridge or adding a third Cup Series car or fielding three full-time entries in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.
Spire may represent a lateral move for Busch in 2025, but as the years go on, Spire will likely begin to outclass RCR. Rookie Carson Hocevar has been far better than LaJoie so far in 2024 and the team has young talent to flaunt in the form of Truck Series star Rajah Caruth.
A Childers-Busch pairing may not be as potent as it could’ve been five years ago, but if Busch decides to stay with RCR, he could be throwing away the twilight years of his career when it appears he still has plenty of gas in the tank.
