Spire Motorsports Cook Out 400 Race Advance

• In 22 NASCAR Cup Series starts at Martinsville Speedway, Spire Motorsports has logged one top-20 and seven top-25 finishes with 10 different drivers. Carson Hocevar, driver of the team’s No. 77 Chevrolet, earned a team-best 17th-place result last April at Martinsville. Spire Motorsports fields the Nos. 7, 71 and 77 Chevrolet ZL1s in the Cup Series for Justin Haley, Michael McDowell and Hocevar, respectively.
• The Cook Out 400 will be televised live on FS1 Sunday, March 30, beginning at 3 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). The seventh of 36 points-paying races on the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series schedule will be broadcast live on the Motor Racing Network and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90. FOX’s NASCAR Raceday will take the green flag at 1:30 p.m. EDT.

Justin Haley – Driver, No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet ZL1

• Justin Haley will pilot Spire Motorsports’ No. 7 Gainbridge Chevrolet ZL1 in Sunday’s 400-lap NASCAR Cup Series race at Martinsville Speedway.
• Last Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Haley started 21st and raced his way to his first top-10 finish of the season.
• Haley has recorded eight previous Cup Series starts at Martinsville Speedway and calls a 27th-place finish (October 2022) a career-best at the famed half-mile oval. In Xfinity Series competition, Haley has logged three Martinsville starts and earned top-five finishes in each outing. In six NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series starts, Haley has earned a pair of top-10 finishes, including a series/venue-best sixth-place finish in October 2018.
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• Sunday will mark Haley’s 151st career NASCAR Cup Series start. Over the course of the last seven seasons, the 25-year-old racer has notched one win, five top fives, 17 top 10s and led 103 laps. He made his first start in NASCAR’s premier division for Spire Motorsports at Talladega Superspeedway on his 20th birthday.
• The veteran racer has collected four NASCAR Xfinity Series checkered flags and three NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series wins, making him one of just 41 drivers in history to have earned victories across all three of NASCAR’s National Touring Series.
• In total, Haley has made 48 Cup Series starts for Spire Motorsports, with the bulk of races coming during the 2021 season behind the wheel of the team’s No. 77 machine.

Justin Haley Quote
You’re coming off your first top-10 of the season, what are your thoughts heading into Martinsville?
“Martinsville has been a struggle for me in a Cup car, but I’m confident Rodney and the No. 7 team will bring a great car this weekend. We have some momentum from the past few weeks and should have a good qualifying draw and that makes a huge difference at Martinsville.”

Atop the No. 7 Box – Crew Chief Rodney Childers

• Crew chief Rodney Childers has called 35 races at Martinsville Speedway. Childers-prepared cars have led 331 laps and earned two top-five and 12 top-10 finishes.
• Childers has called 682 NASCAR Cup Series races where he’s earned 34 poles, 40 wins, 178 top-five and 298 top-10 finishes. He also earned 2014 championship honors with Harvick.
• Childers’ 40 wins at NASCAR’s premier level ties him for second-most amongst all active crew chiefs in the Cup Series garage.

Michael McDowell – Driver, No. 71 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet ZL1

• Michael McDowell made his first career NASCAR Cup Series start at a snowy Martinsville Speedway over 6,000 days ago on March 30, 2008, with Michael Waltrip Racing.
• In support of NASCAR’s celebrated return to Rockingham Speedway, Spire Motorsports will showcase a “Race the Rock” paint scheme aboard McDowell’s No. 71 Chevrolet ZL1 in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series 400-lap contest at Martinsville Speedway. For the first time in over a decade, NASCAR will return to the south-central North Carolina Piedmont for the highly anticipated return of major league stock car racing to Rockingham Speedway.
• Located in Richmond County, N.C., Rockingham Speedway opened as a flat, one-mile oval on Oct. 31, 1965. It was reconfigured to a one-mile (1.017 miles) high-banked, D-shaped oval in 1969. In 2018, a new ownership group took over the facility and renamed it Rockingham Speedway & Entertainment Complex. Following extensive repairs that included resurfacing the speedway, Track Enterprises, the official promoter of the North Carolina Education Lottery 250 presented by Black’s Tire NASCAR Xfinity Series race and the Black’s Tire 200 NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series race, announced an agreement last August to bring NASCAR back to the venerable oval Easter Weekend. Today, the facility hosts a wide variety of events including karting, road racing, endurance racing, concerts and more. In 2025, Rockingham Speedway will welcome the return of NASCAR for the first time since 2013.
• McDowell has claimed two Xfinity Fastest Lap awards, clocking the fastest lap in the Daytona 500 and earlier this month at Phoenix Raceway. Through six weeks, McDowell stands as the only driver across the three national series to have secured multiple bonus points through the newly-unveiled program.
• The Arizona native secured Spire Motorsports’ first Busch Light Pole Award two races ago at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. His 28.833 second lap marks the fastest lap in the Gen 7 era (2022-present) at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
• Not only did McDowell make his Cup Series debut at Martinsville Speedway, but he also made his CRAFTSMAN Truck Series debut at the Ridgeway, Va., oval in October of 2007.
• The father of five earned his best career finish of 14th at Martinsville in the Spring of 2020 after qualifying 29th for the 500-lap contest.

Michael McDowell Quotes

What are your thoughts about heading into the first short-track race of the season?

“I’m excited. There’s a lot of different styles that we race on racetrack wise, right? Phoenix is not really a short track, it’s pretty unique in the approach, set up, and things like that. So, I feel like Martinsville is that first true short track, but at the same time, it’s such a unique short track that is its own beast and approach. I look forward to it, we’ve had a lot of speed this year with our Spire cars. Martinsville’s been a love hate relationship for me. It’s been an up and down race in the old car. It was one of my better tracks. I felt like I could outperform my equipment at times but in the NextGen era, it just hasn’t been great for me, which is crazy because everywhere else has been really good in the NextGen car, so it’s a head scratcher for sure.

“Spire has had good speed there the last few years and I feel like they have a different approach to their Martinsville package, so I’m excited to try that and see if I can make the gains that I need to make. It’s one of those weekends where I feel like if you execute, you can win, and you can give yourself a legitimate shot, so I am looking forward to it. We’ve got Rockingham on the car, which is going to be fun, supporting the Rockingham race that’s coming up here April 18-19. It’s going to be a fun weekend. It is such a legendary racetrack.

What’s your perspective on Rockingham, from the driver’s seat?
“I’ve never raced there, but I’ve done a lot of testing there. When I came into the Cup Series in 2007/2008, if you were the rookie, you tested every week. I know rookies and young guys would love that right now, because we just don’t get to do it as much. I would go to Rockingham all the time and burn laps. It’s just a really fun racetrack. Rockingham is a historical place that’s been revived. You think of North Wilkesboro about that same feel, like new surface, new energy, but that old school feel, so I am looking forward to having ‘The Rock’ on the car and representing them. That said, Martinsville is a big weekend and hopefully we can just keep this momentum up. We’re on a positive trajectory, but you’re always one weekend away from that changing.”

Atop the No. 71 Box – Crew Chief Travis Peterson

• Crew chief Travis Peterson joined Spire Motorsports following the 2024 season after spending 2023-2024 alongside McDowell at Front Row Motorsports.
• The West Bend, Wis., native helped Dale Earnhardt, Jr. to a fourth-place finish in November 2015 as a race engineer at Hendrick Motorsports.

Carson Hocevar – Driver, No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet ZL1

• Carson Hocevar, driver of the No. 77 Delaware Life Chevrolet ZL1 for Spire Motorsports, is set to make his fourth start at Martinsville Speedway in Sunday’s 400-lap NASCAR Cup Series race. The 22-year-old racer earned a 17th-place finish, his best Cup Series result at the famed half-mile track, last April.
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• In last Sunday’s race at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Hocevar qualified 15th and collected bonus points with a top-10 finish in the second stage. The 2024 Rookie of the Year was running sixth with 86 laps remaining when he reported a loss of power which left him 37th in the final rundown.
• As the No. 77 team prepares for the seventh points-paying race of the year, and the first true short track event, Hocevar looks to improve upon his average finish of 24.7. Despite completing 49-percent of his total laps this season in the top 15, the Portage, Mich., native looks to rally from a best finish of 30th in the last three events.
• Hocevar owns four NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series starts at the paperclip-shaped track in Ridgeway, Va., highlighted by a 12th-place result in October 2021.

Carson Hocevar Quotes
What makes Martinsville one of the toughest tracks on the circuit?
“I think the unpredictability of how the race will play out. You know there will be chaos, but you don’t know when or where. We’ve seen wrecks happen at the front of the field, at the back, on restarts and deep in a green flag run. As a driver you’re trying not to think about when something is going to happen. It’s inevitable that it will, but Martinsville is a track where you have to find your rhythm and stay in it. There are just so many things that have to go right to leave with a good finish, but that’s what we need. Whatever we can do to have a clean race and a good points day, that’s what we’re going to do.”

Atop the No. 77 Box – Crew Chief Luke Lambert

• Sunday’s event marks the 411th Cup Series event atop the pit box for Luke Lambert with 66 races being contested on short tracks. Over those events, he’s totaled four top fives and 18 top 10s.
• In 23 Cup events called at Martinsville, Lambert led his drivers to one top-five and six top-10 finishes.
• Lambert and Hocevar were paired for nine short-track events in 2024 with a best finish of eighth at the other Virginia short track, Richmond Raceway.
• In 10 NASCAR Xfinity Series races on short tracks, the Mount Airy, N.C., native called three wins, six top-five and seven top-10 finishes.

About Spire Motorsports …
Spire Motorsports earned its inaugural NASCAR Cup Series victory in its first full season of competition when Justin Haley took the checkered flag in the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway on July 7, 2019. Less than three years later, William Byron drove Spire Motorsports’ No. 7 Chevrolet Silverado to its inaugural NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series win on April 7, 2022, at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway. The team’s most recent win came on March 21, 2025, when Kyle Larson took the checkered flag in the Baptist Health 200 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

In 2025, Spire Motorsports will campaign the Nos. 7, 71 and 77 Chevrolets in the NASCAR Cup Series. The team will also field the Nos. 07, 7, 71 and 77 Chevrolet Silverados in the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series and the No. 77 Chevrolet in the ARCA Menards Series in select events.