Hendrick’s Day to race for Spire in Cup Series next season

Hendrick Motorsports’ Corey Day will make his NASCAR Cup Series starts with Spire Motorsports next season.

Day, who signed a long-term contract extension with Hendrick Motorsports earlier this week, will be unable to stay in-house for those starts because of the charter agreement. Hendrick was grandfathered in with four full-time cars under the new car agreement and cannot run a fifth. However, the organization has a technical alliance with Spire Motorsports, which has three full-time teams and can run a fourth car.

Hendrick Motorsports president and general manager Jeff Andrews confirmed the plans Saturday at World Wide Technology Raceway while expanding on the contract signing. Andrews also revealed Day, 20, would run five to six races in 2027. The details of Day's Cup slate, including where his debut will occur and what team personnel he will work with, have yet to be finalized.

“There will be a variety of tracks,” Andrews said. “Kyle Larson and Jeff Gordon will have a tremendous input on what those are, but we’re working through that right now. I don’t want to throw anything out there too far, but more likely the middle to latter half of the year will be what we’re looking at and targeting for those. We’ll try to mix that up with mile-and-a-halves and some short tracks, and kind of see how that schedule goes and how it coincides with his O’Reilly schedule as well.”

Day will remain full-time in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series next season, where he is currently competing for the championship and has two wins. It will be his sophomore year driving the No. 17 Chevrolet.

Hendrick Motorsports brought back a full-time ride for Day, who has been transitioning from dirt to pavement racing. HendrickCars.com is the full-season sponsor.

“I think for me finishing all the laps of the races would be my first goal,” Day said. “But then learning the race craft. The car is so much different when you’re out making laps by yourself or racing in traffic, when it’s even more different.

“So, for me, the seat time will be huge to learn that. I’ve had to do that last year and this whole year with this (O’Reilly Series) car, and I feel like I’m finally to an OK place with it. It’s been just about a full year now of doing it. So, I’ll have a lot to learn, for sure.”

Andrews acknowledged that once the organization gets through next year with Day and his progression, they can start to understand what 2028 will look like. But nothing is off the table as far as continuing with what ’27 looked like or going full-time Cup Series racing.

“I think every driver and every team is different,” said Andrews. “I would say, specific to Hendrick Motorsports, we’ve not had a driver development program, so to speak, in the past, and I think we would call this more of a Corey Day development program. We’re interested in him – obviously an immense talent in the sport and obviously great for our company – and we want to be involved in continuing to grow and advance him through the sport of the series, wherever that may be.”