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NASCAR Cup Series driver Justin Haley has heard the rumblings about his future<\/p>\n
This Saturday night at Richmond International Raceway is the second-to-last race to decide who\u2019s in, and who\u2019s out, for the 2025 NASCAR<\/a> Cup Series Playoffs.<\/p>\n One driver who doesn\u2019t have to worry about making the playoffs, but is instead focused on keeping his ride into the future, is Justin Haley. After returning to Spire Motorsports<\/a> in 2024, after 29 races with Rick Ware Racing that year, the No. 7 Chevrolet team hasn\u2019t lit up the race results as hoped. Haley drove the No. 77 for Spire in 2021 before going to Kaulig Racing in 2022 and 2023.<\/p>\n At the beginning of 2025, Haley was paired with NASCAR Champion Crew Chief Rodney Childers. After nine races, Childress and Spire<\/a> parted ways and the team\u2019s Director of Competition Ryan Sparks returned to the No. 7 pit box<\/p>\n With no top-fives and one top-10 finish with 12 races remaining, the talk of Haley\u2019s remaining with the team has been getting louder in recent weeks.<\/p>\n He\u2019s Heard and Felt the Rumblings<\/p>\n \u201cObviously, it\u2019s been a pretty difficult season, in general, with where we are in the points standings and kind of what we\u2019ve gone through,\u201d Haley shared with the media at Indianapolis. \u201cDefinitely not what I expected when I started in Daytona, to go through all we\u2019ve been through.<\/p>\n \u201cBut, we\u2019re just trying to find a little bit of silver lining and get some good finishes by the end of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n For three-consecutive races recently, Haley and the Sparks-led team did have admirable finishes. Placing 15th at Sonoma Raceway, 11th at Dover and 17th at Indy gave a glimmer of hope.<\/p>\n However, that was followed up by a 23rd at Iowa and 27th place at Watkins Glen.<\/p>\n Spire Ownership Shares Thoughts on Haley<\/p>\n During a recent interview on Sirius-XM NASCAR Radio, team co-owner Jeff Dickerson discussed their driver\u2019s future. The team has shown continued growth across it\u2019s NASCAR operation of Cup and Truck Series teams. In turn, that has elevated Spire\u2019s expectations.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s pressure internally and externally that we all have to answer to and kind of meet.\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s no secret that Justin and that team, they just have not performed up to the expectations that we\u2019ve set forth. That is something that we\u2019re constantly discussing. How do we do better? How do we make this go better and faster and more results?<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been super proud of Justin the last few weeks because with all these rumors swirling around, I thought he put together a couple of good really weeks. I don\u2019t know if the rumors added any more pressure.<\/p>\n \u201cI think as we have kind of evolved as a company, we are to a place where we have to meet those expectations. It\u2019s just not good enough for us to make it to the racetrack anymore, or just kind of run 30th anymore. We just can\u2019t do it, that\u2019s just the way to put it.\u201d<\/p>\n Daytona Offers a Glimmer of Hope<\/p>\n \u201cI would say that Justin is under no more pressure than us or than me to perform,\u201d Dickerson continued. \u201cI guess you just never know how this is going to go. I\u2019m as curious as anybody to see where this goes the next 12 weeks.<\/p>\n \u201cI do know this, he\u2019s got two opportunities here to make the playoffs. I would not bet against Justin Haley at either of these tracks.\u201d<\/p>\n The final race to determine this year\u2019s Playoff contenders is at Daytona International Speedway,<\/a> where Haley won his only<\/a> NCS race in 2001.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tTim Packman<\/strong><\/a> Tim Packman is a journalist for Heavy.com covering NASCAR. He grew up around the short tracks of Western New York watching his dad, stepdad and step brother race. His uncle was the head starter at many area tracks and member of the FOAR Score Hall of Fame.
\n\t\t\tMore Heavy on NASCAR\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\tLoading more stories\n\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty Images NASCAR Cup Series driver Justin Haley has heard the rumblings about his future This Saturday night…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":145786,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[1406,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-145785","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-nascar","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115028625029312067","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nTim’s passion for racing took him to the announcer’s tower and writing program stores for multiple tracks in the area. In 2000, he moved to Mooresville, NC to become an award-winning journalist for NASCAR.com. He took a job with Dale Earnhardt, Inc. as the team’s Communications Director and was part of two Daytona 500 wins and two NASCAR Championships.
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\nThe announcing experience led to becoming a Pit Reporter and News Director for MRN Radio. A return to the team side at Richard Childress Racing as the Director of Corporate Communications took place, which also included another Championship.
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\nFrom 2015 to 2018, Tim returned to where his career began in 1994 – Lancaster National Speedway & Dragway – as the Track President. He earned Short Track Promoter of the Year awards in 2016 and 2017.
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\nUpon returning to NC, he joined The Garage Shop as Communications Director and host of it’s Podcast and MAV-TV docuseries “Legacy of Speed” talking about Land Speed Racing at Bonneville, and other places.
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\nTim has hosted two other Podcasts, namely “Pub Table Racers,” and wrote three books. One was with NASCAR Hall of Famer Bobby Allison titled, “Bobby Allison, a Racer’s Racer” and two Children’s books, “Funny Dan the Race Car Man” and “Petey the Pace Car.”
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\nHe also served in the US Navy. More about Tim Packman<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n