NASCAR: The biggest remaining silly season domino has fallen

A huge silly season puzzle piece fell into place with Richard Petty Motorsports selling a majority interest to GMS Racing ahead of the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season.

On Wednesday afternoon, Richard Petty Motorsports and GMS Racing confirmed that Richard Petty Motorsports will be selling a majority interest to GMS Racing owner Maury Gallagher ahead of the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season.

This sale includes both of the Richard Petty Motorsports charters, the one that has been used to run their own #43 Chevrolet and the one that has been used by Rick Ware Racing to run one of their four entries, the #51 car.

Here is the statement from Gallagher and Richard Petty Motorsports about the matter.

"“Richard Petty Motorsports has agreed to sell a majority interest to Maury Gallagher, owner of GMS Racing. Two charters are included in the agreement and will be operated during the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season. This is a special moment for both organizations as the Next Gen car allows a new chapter to be written.”"

The plan for 2022 is still to run the #43 Chevrolet as a Richard Petty Motorsports entry for Erik Jones. Ty Dillon is set to drive the #94 Chevrolet for GMS Racing. Naturally, both are chartered entries.

While this particular huge transaction wasn’t one that many saw coming, it turned out to be a major silly season puzzle piece that fell into place.

Just 32 of the 36 charters had confirmed homes for the 2022 season before this transaction. Now that number is suddenly up to 35 of the 36.

We now know that Richard Petty Motorsports’ second charter is set to move to GMS Racing from Rick Ware Racing, meaning that Rick Ware Racing are set to use two of their own three charters (and not the one they have used from Richard Petty Motorsports) to run the two entries they plan to run, the #15 team and the #51 team, in 2022.

Rick Ware Racing indicated plans to downsize from four cars to two cars for 2022, and they are expected to sell or lease their other charter.

As far as charters are concerned, this is now the final puzzle piece that needs to fall into place following Wednesday’s big announcement.

So where will that charter end up? Keep an eye on one team in particular…