Entering its fourth season in the NASCAR Cup Series, Spire Motorsports has made a major addition to their driver lineup for 2022: On Monday, the team announced that Josh Bilicki will be the driver of their No. 77 Chevrolet for most of the upcoming NASCAR Cup Series season.
Bilicki, a 26-year old driver from Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, joins Spire after running the full 2021 Cup Series season for Rick Ware Racing. Bilicki will drive the majority of the schedule, but his debut with Spire will not come until after the Daytona 500. Instead, his first race will come at Auto Club Speedway the following week.
“I couldn’t be more eager to start this new chapter of my career and join Spire Motorsports for the 2022 season,” Bilicki said. “I learned a great amount last year during my first full-time season in the NASCAR Cup Series, on and off the track and I feel that experience will help me make this transition to a new team. Spire Motorsports has taken big leaps over the last few years, and we feel the platform of the new Next Gen car will improve our performance all around.”
A road racer by trade, Bilicki has run 71 Cup Series races over the last five seasons and 58 over the last two, building a reputation as a driver who takes care of his equipment despite driving for underfunded teams. Bilicki was running at the finish of 34 of 36 races last year — never once failing to finish due to a crash — and earned some respectable results, most notably a 10th-place run at Daytona in August.
Bilicki takes over Spire’s No. 77 for Justin Haley, who drove the car in 31 of 36 races last year. The car’s other drivers included former Daytona 500 winner Jamie McMurray, Xfinity Series drivers Josh Berry and Justin Allgaier, and Camping World Truck Series driver Stewart Friesen.
