Spire recently announced the purchase of Leavine Family Racing’s Cup Series charter and the single-car team’s assets, which will go into effect at season’s end.
“We did this for three reasons,” Dickerson said. “One is that charter values are going up. We wanted to buy in at the right time — at least for us. Two is real estate — we needed a building. With a new car coming with lots of new variables and a new model, it’s one less headache. We wanted to expand no matter what. Our goal has always been to be a two or three-car team.”
Spire’s No. 77 squad will move into Leavine Family Racing’s Concord, N.C. shop in late November or early December as it expands to two cars.
“We want two full-time cars with two full-time drivers,” Dickerson said. “If it’s up to us, that’s what we’ll do. Sometimes, these things decide themselves. We have not begun to negotiate that [drivers and sponsors]. There are several drivers that we like. Ross Chastain is somebody that we’ve worked with forever and Justin Haley. For those two guys, they should be in every conversation for openings in the garage.”
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Dickerson and Puchyr have been working with Cup Series teams for a long time. Thanks to Spire’s management firm, they have a partnership with Chip Ganassi Racing and Hendrick Motorsports that is quite flexible.
“It’s not difficult to pick up the phone and figure out what our next step is,” Dickerson said. “That’s how you do it.”
In 2021, the team is looking to grow its partnership with either of those organizations or even elsewhere. Dickerson also mentioned that Spire does have a relationship with Toyota Racing Development, which will certainly be looking to fill the void left behind now that the OEM’s only team is Joe Gibbs Racing.
“We’re not necessarily looking to have the same alliance that Bob Leavine or some of these other teams have,” Dickerson said. “We’re looking to be partners. We want to grow our business and grow it in a manner that is consistent with what our technical partners would want us to be.”
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Ultimately, 2021 is a year for Spire to make mistakes while growing. If they can hire two drivers to compete full-time, it will set them up to be in prime position heading into 2022, when they might have the sponsorship backing to create a full-blown alliance with a larger Cup Series team.
See much more at Forbes.