Spire Motorsports Goodyear 400 Race Advance

• In 22 NASCAR Cup Series starts at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway, Spire Motorsports has logged one top-10 and two top-15 finishes. Corey LaJoie earned a team-best ninth-place result in last August’s Southern 500. Spire Motorsports fields the Nos. 7, 71 and 77 Chevrolet ZL1s in the Cup Series for Justin Haley, Michael McDowell and Carson Hocevar, respectively.
• The Goodyear 400 will be televised live on FS1 Sunday, April 6, beginning at 3 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). The eighth 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 2 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 Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway.
• Last Sunday at Martinsville (Va.) Raceway, Haley started 30th and drove inside the top 15 to start the second stage. The No. 7 team hit pit road on Lap 266 to short-pit the field and gain track position in the long run, but a caution flag 10 laps later interrupted the pit cycle and trapped the Gainbridge Chevy two laps down. The team was credited with a 29th-place finish.
• Haley has recorded eight previous Cup Series starts at Darlington where he earned a career-best finish of third in May 2022. He owns three top 10s at the 1.366-mile track including an eighth-place result last May.
• In Xfinity Series competition, Haley has logged five Darlington starts resulting in one pole, one top-five and two top-10 finishes with 11 laps led. The 25-year-old has a 4.6 place average start and 10.4 finish.
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• Sunday will mark Haley’s 152nd 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 (Ala.) 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
What are your expectations for this weekend at Darlington?
“Darlington is one of my favorite tracks. I’m excited to get there this weekend and continue to make gains with the No. 7 team. We’ve shown a lot of speed and I think that will show again this weekend.”

Atop the No. 7 Box – Crew Chief Rodney Childers

• Crew Chief Rodney Childers has called 24 races at Darlington Raceway. Childers-prepared cars have led 764 laps and earned three wins, 12 top-five and 14 top-10 finishes.
• In their inaugural season as a team, Childers and driver Kevin Harvick dominated the 2014 Southern 500 at “The Lady in Black,” starting from the pole position and leading 238 of the event’s 374 laps en route to victory. The win marked the second of five trips to victory lane in the No. 4 crew’s championship season.
• The 48-year-old earned a pair of victories at Darlington during the 2020 season. When NASCAR returned to action following a six-week hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Childers and Harvick led 159 laps to claim victory in May. They returned four months later to earn their second Southern 500 crown.
• The Mooresville, N.C., native has called 683 NASCAR Cup Series races where he’s earned 34 poles, 40 wins, 178 top-five and 299 top-10 finishes. He also earned 2014 championship honors with Kevin 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 will pilot Spire Motorsports’ No. 71 Delaware Life Chevrolet ZL1 in Sunday’s Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway.
• McDowell has secured three top-10 finishes in 19 career starts at “The Lady in Black,” all of which have come in the six events with NASCAR’s seventh generation Cup Series car.
• Last May, the father of five and crew chief Travis Peterson topped the charts in practice prior to the 2024 Goodyear 400. The pairing secured their second top 10 in as many weeks with a 10th-place finish.
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• Last week at Martinsville Speedway, the 40-year-old drove the No. 71 RaceTheRock.com Chevrolet to a venue-best 12th-place result in 25 attempts at the Virginia half-mile.
• McDowell has claimed two Xfinity Fastest Lap awards, clocking the fastest lap in the Daytona 500 and earlier this month at Phoenix Raceway. Through seven weeks, McDowell stands as the only driver in the NASCAR Cup Series to have secured multiple bonus points through the newly-unveiled program. The NASCAR Xfinity Series’ Justin Allgaier has also scored two of the awards this season.
• The Arizona native secured Spire Motorsports’ first Busch Light Pole Award last month at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. His 28.833 second lap marks the fastest lap in the Gen 7 era (2022-present) at the 1.5-mile Nevada oval.

Michael McDowell Quotes
What are your thoughts about heading into Darlington?
“Darlington has been a good track for us. It’s so tough; it is everything that we promote it to be as far as the level of difficulty. You’re right up against the limit, right up against the wall and tires still fall off, even in this NextGen era. It’s one of those races where you earn your money, and the driver has a lot of value for taking care of the tires in the long run, managing pace, and all those things. I enjoy Darlington. It’s one of the races that I need to add to my Crown Jewel collections because I got the 500 and the Brickyard. The Southern 500 is the one you need, right? 
I know it’s not the Southern 500 this weekend, but a Darlington win would be enough to cover it. If I can check the box, I would love to.”

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.
• As a race engineer at JR Motorsports, the West Bend, Wis., native helped Chase Elliott to Xfinity Series victory lane at “The Lady in Black” in 2014. After lining up sixth for a green-white-checkered restart, Elliott made the race winning move on Elliott Sadler entering Turn 3 on the final lap. The win came one week removed from his first series victory at Texas Motor Speedway and seven months prior to clinching the 2024 division championship crown.
• The 33-year-old secured a top 10 finish in last May’s Goodyear 400 with Michael McDowell.

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

• Carson Hocevar will make his fourth NASCAR Cup Series start at Darlington Raceway in Sunday’s Goodyear 400. The driver of the No. 77 Zeigler Auto Group Chevrolet ZL1 boasts a venue-best finish of 17th in his first Darlington appearance in September 2023.
• In the September 2024 race at Darlington, Hocevar became the youngest driver to start on the front row at the 1.366-mile egg-shaped oval with a second-place qualifying effort. Despite spending a majority of the evening within the top 10, a Lap 335 incident dealt significant damage to the No. 77 Chevrolet, forcing the team to retire from the event.
• The 22-year-old driver finished 19th in last Sunday’s 400-lap race at Martinsville Speedway. The result breaks a streak of bad luck and marked Hocevar’s best finish since he crossed the line in 13th at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas on March 2.
• In four NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Trucks Series starts at “The Lady in Black”, Hocevar has collected three top fives including a runner-up finish in May 2022.
• The Portage, Mich., native contested Spire Motorsports’ first Xfinity Series start at Darlington in May 2023. Hocevar secured his first top 10 in the series with a sixth-place result.
• Zeigler Automotive Group is one of the largest privately-owned dealer groups in the U.S. with 84 franchises across 41 locations in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan. Vehicle brands represented include all the domestic and majority of the imported manufacturers. The family-owned and -operated organization has been a regular on the Cup Series tour since 2019.

Carson Hocevar Quotes
You had a great run at Darlington last September. How does that translate to the Spring race?
“I would say the day race is probably more difficult. It’s a shorter race and you don’t have a drastic change in the track from day to night. You can’t bank on those extra laps or the track getting tighter and allowing you to get caught up on the handling. Everyone wants to win the Southern 500, but a win at Darlington in either scenario is really special. We’ve improved a lot as team since that last race at Darlington where we qualified well, and I think we have a good chance to show speed in practice, qualify decent and have another good points day.”

Atop the No. 77 Box – Crew Chief Luke Lambert

• Crew Chief Luke Lambert has called 16 Cup Series races at Darlington dating back to the 2013 season. He led Ryan Newman to four top-10s, while collecting a ninth-place result with Chris Buescher in both 2021 events.
• The Mount Airy, N.C., native led Noah Gragson to victory at Darlington in the September 2022 NASCAR Xfinity Series race after a runner-up finish that May. The win marked their first of four-consecutive triumphs in the series.
• Last Sunday’s race at Martinsville marked 50 races together for the Lambert-Hocevar duo. They have united to earn two-top five and six top-10 finishes, highlighted by a runner-up result earlier this season at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

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.