NASCAR: The missing puzzle piece that has fans wondering

StarCom Racing have sold their charter and presumably will not compete in the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season, but that isn’t the end of the story.

While many of the big-name drivers have signed new deals to either stick with their current teams or drive elsewhere for the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season, there is still quite a bit that we don’t yet know about how next year’s lineup will look.

The puzzle is slowly but surely coming together, but one recent development has fans wondering what, exactly, is going to happen when it comes to one charter in particular.

Catchfence reported a few weeks ago that StarCom Racing have sold their lone charter to another team, and it was since leaked by team shop foreman and mechanical director Charlie Langenstein that the plan is not for the team to run a non-chartered #00 Chevrolet in 2022 but to shut down completely.

Still, the only thing confirmed by anybody is the fact that the charter that they currently use to run the #00 Chevrolet for Quin Houff has, in fact, been sold.

Even if we operate under the assumption that StarCom Racing will not compete in 2022, there is still one key detail that is missing here:

Who bought the charter?

There are two rumored possibilities, with one standing out as the more likely one of the two. We know that 23XI Racing are looking for a second charter to field the #45 Toyota that they recently confirmed for Kurt Busch, but it appears as though another team may have bought it: Spire Motorsports.

While the team have stated that they have no news to announce, Spire Motorsports purchasing this charter would arguably make even more sense than the Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin-owned team doing so.

Spire Motorsports, unlike 23XI Racing, already field two full-time entries. They currently operate with three charters, and they leased one out to Trackhouse Racing Team for 2021.

But for 2022, it was announced that they have sold two of them, including the one which they least out, to Kaulig Racing, which plan to enter the series with two full-time entries. Trackhouse Racing Team will end up with two charters of their own when they acquire Chip Ganassi Racing at the end of the year.

So that leaves Spire Motorsports with just one charter. They would presumably want a second one so that they can operate like they do now, running both the #7 Chevrolet and #77 Chevrolet as chartered entries on a full-time basis.

And if this transaction is confirmed, the biggest question will then become a question that has been asked ever since Hamlin discussed expansion before the 2021 season started back in February: where will 23XI Racing find a second charter?