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 the 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 press 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 second full-time Cup driver to be announced.

“You’ve seen how we’ve progressed over the last six 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.”

Kaulig declined to comment on the amount the team purchased its charters for.

This story is breaking and will be updated.