Kaulig Racing will go full-time NASCAR Cup racing with Justin Haley in 2022

Kaulig Racing announced Friday that it has acquired two NASCAR charters to allow it to compete full-time in the Cup Series in 2022. Justin Haley will be the team’s full-time Cup driver as the Xfinity organization grows its presence at a higher level in the sport.

Haley is Kaulig’s longest-running full-time driver racing the No. 11 in the Xfinity Series. He signed a multi-year deal to continue with the team in Cup starting next season, team president Chris Rice and owner Matt Kaulig announced during a news conference at Nashville Superspeedway ahead of an Xfinity practice.

Haley and teammate A.J. Allmendinger were on stage for the announcement. The team also shared that Allmendinger will run a full-time Xfinity schedule next season and select Cup Series races with a plans for the second full-time Cup entry to be announced.

“You’ve seen how we’ve progressed over the last (five) years, so this a big one in that journey to win Cup races, win championships and just grow and be as big as we can,” Kaulig said.

The team confirmed that it purchased the charters from Spire Motorsports, which said in a statement Friday that it plans to continue to field the No. 7 driven by Corey LaJoie as a chartered entry in the Cup Series next year.

Spire owns three charters this year, fielding the No. 7 and the No. 77 entries, and leased one of its charters to Trackhouse Racing to field the No. 99 car driven by Daniel Suárez.

Trackhouse Racing owner Justin Marks has expressed his interest in purchasing a charter, which guarantees a team’s entry into all races, and eventually expanding Trackhouse to a two-car operation. He tweeted Friday shortly after Kaulig’s announcement that he “learned about this deal when everyone else did today.”

Marks is scheduled to speak with the media at Nashville on Saturday in a press conference with team co-owner Pitbull.

Kaulig declined to comment on the amount the team purchased its charters for, but credited Rice with getting the deal done and recognized that there have been “so many people that are hunting charters over the last year or so.” The arrival of the Next Gen car in 2022 is expected to lower costs for teams and has generated a growing interest in ownership.

Kaulig Racing made its first Cup start in 2020 at the Daytona 500 with Haley behind the wheel, and plans to enter 10 races total in the series this season. Since Haley joined the team in 2019, he has earned three wins, 15 top-five finishes, and 50 top-10s for Kaulig Racing in the Xfinity Series, and has made Cup starts for Spire Motorsports over the last three years.

“Obviously Kaulig Racing is a big family and I just feel like it was right,” Haley, 22, said. “I can’t thank them enough for everything they’ve done and all the trophies we’re gonna keep hunting, and we’re going to go win some Cup races next year for sure.”