Josh Bilicki, who ran the full 2021 NASCAR Cup Series season with Rick Ware Racing, will not return to the organization for the 2022 season, a source with knowledge of the move confirmed to TobyChristie.com.
An attempt to reach Rick Ware Racing for comment has gone unanswered at the time of this story being published.
Bilicki, 26, will remain a fixture in the NASCAR Cup Series next year. The formal announcement of Bilicki’s 2022 plans are expected to come in early January. According to multiple sources, Bilicki could be a candidate to drive the No. 77 Spire Motorsports machine this year.
The second Spire car makes logical sense as it is one of two full-time options, outside of Rick Ware Racing, that have yet to confirm their driver for the 2022 season.
While Live Fast Motorsports have also not officially announced their driver, team co-owner BJ McLeod has been the test driver for the No. 78 Next Gen car in the test sessions so far and McLeod ran the car for the majority of the season in 2021.
If Live Fast Motorsports is out of the mix, it leaves only Spire Motorsports as a legitimate full-time landing spot for Bilicki.
Spire, who sold two of their three charters to Kaulig Racing for 2022, is expected to be the team that will end up with the third Rick Ware Racing charter this season to bring them back to two full-time chartered cars next season.
Bilicki is an interesting prospect for Spire Motorsports, as he is a very astute road racer.
The NASCAR Cup Series, which for years only had two road races on the schedule, will have six road courses on the slate in 2022, including Bilicki’s home track — Road America.
In addition to having a penchant for success on road courses, Bilicki has also proven to be a very clean driver who takes car of his equipment. In 71-career NASCAR Cup Series starts, Bilicki has never fallen out of a race due to a crash.
According to the TobyChristie.com Incident Tracker, Bilicki tied Joey Logano for the second-least amount of incidents among full-time drivers during the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series season with nine incidents.
Bilicki has recorded a total of 10 incidents in his 71-career NCS starts, which equates to a very impressive 0.141 incidents per race.
The Wisconsin-native scored his first-career NASCAR Cup Series top-10 finish with a 10th-place effort at Daytona International Speedway back in August. It was Bilicki’s ability to steer clear of chaos that secured him that great finish, as he skillfully avoided five multi-car accidents during that race en route to the top-10 finish.
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