- In seven NASCAR Cup Series starts at World Wide Technology Raceway (WWTR), Spire Motorsports has logged one top-10 and two top-20 finishes. Carson Hocevar earned a team-best eighth-place result at the Madison, Ill., oval last June. Spire Motorsports fields the Nos. 7, 71 and 77 Chevrolet ZL1s in the NCS with Justin Haley, Michael McDowell and Hocevar, respectively.
- The Enjoy Illinois 300 will be televised live on USA Sunday, Sept. 7 beginning at 3 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). The 28th of 36 points-paying events on the NASCAR Cup Series calendar will be broadcast live on the Motor Racing Network and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, Channel 90.
Justin Haley – Driver, No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet ZL1
- Justin Haley will pilot Spire Motorsports’ No. 7 Gainbridge Chevrolet ZL1 in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Enjoy Illinois 300 at World Wide Technology Raceway in Madison, Illinois.
- Haley will make his fourth Cup Series start at WWTR. In three previous outings, the Winamac, Ind., native earned one top-10 and two top-20 finishes. Last June, the 26-year-old came from deep in the field to notch a respectable ninth-place finish in the 240-lap event. He finished 14th in 2022 and 16th in 2023. Over those three races, the 2019 Coke Zero Sugar 400 (Daytona) winner posted a 24.0 average start, and a solid 13.0 average finish at the 1.25-mile oval.
- Haley captured his first career NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series victory on June 23, 2018 at WWTR. In three previous CRAFTSMAN Truck starts at the track, Haley has logged one win and two top-10 finishes. He earned a 9.0 average start, a 10.7 average finish and led 10 laps.
- Last Sunday at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway, Haley qualified 13th and raced inside the top 20 for most of the evening before a late-race pit stop under green-flag conditions left him 27th in the final rundown.
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- Sunday’s race will mark Haley’s 171st career NASCAR Cup Series start. Over the course of the last seven seasons, he has collected one Cup Series victory, six top fives, 18 top 10s and led 123 laps. He made his first premier series start with Spire Motorsports at Talladega Superspeedway on his 20th birthday and has since made 71 Cup Series starts with the team.
Justin Haley Quotes
You qualified 13th at Darlington and ran pretty well until you had to make an unscheduled pit stop under green. What are your thoughts heading into this weekend?
“Our car was fast last weekend at Darlington and I’ve had some success at World Wide Technology Raceway so I’m definitely looking forward to this weekend. Hopefully, we’re fast when we unload and can put together a solid weekend.”
World Wide Technology Raceway has a unique layout with its tight corners and long straightaways. How does it compare to some of the other tracks on the schedule?
“The track is flat and tricky because both ends of the race track are so different. The challenge is what makes it different and interesting for me. Gateway has always been a good track for me, personally. I won my first CRAFTSMAN Truck Series race there in 2018 and finished top 10 in the Cup Race last year so this is definitely one I’ve had circled on my calendar.”
Atop the No. 7 Box – Crew Chief Ryan Sparks
- Ryan Sparks serves in a dual role as both Spire Motorsports Competition Director and crew chief for driver Justin Haley, first pairing with Haley at Bristol Motor Speedway in September 2024.
- The Winston-Salem, N.C., native has stood atop the pit box for 193 NASCAR Cup Series races, earning four top-five and ten top-10 finishes over the course of his career.
Michael McDowell – Driver, No. 71 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet ZL1
- Michael McDowell will pilot Spire Motorsports’ No. 71 Delaware Life Chevrolet ZL1 in Sunday’s Enjoy Illinois 300 at World Wide Technology Raceway.
- McDowell has one top-10 finish in three career Cup Series starts at the uniquely configured 1.25-mile Madison, Ill., oval. The driver of Spire Motorsports No. 71 Chevy finished ninth in the division’s 2023 visit to the suburban St. Louis venue.
- Last June, McDowell set a track record with a speed of 138.598 mph (32.368 seconds), to earn his third career Cup Series pole position. McDowell and his Travis Peterson-led team collected a season high total of six pole awards last season.
- The seasoned Cup Series veteran has led a total of 74 laps at World Wide Technology Raceway, including 34 in 2022 and 40 in 2024.
- B’Laster and Go Bowling will both serve in an associate sponsor capacity for this weekend’s 240-lap contest on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River.
- Over the course of 27 races in 2025, McDowell tallied two top-five, three top-10 and 15 top-20 finishes. To date, the veteran racer has earned an average starting position of 15.1, a 19.7 average finish, led 86 laps and been running at the finish of all but two of the season’s first 27 points-paying races.
- The father-of-five boasts an average starting position of 13.0, at the egg-shaped oval and has only started outside the top 20 (21st) once.
- McDowell has claimed three Xfinity Fastest Lap awards this season, clocking the fastest lap in the Daytona 500, Phoenix Raceway and Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway. The team is one of just three in the series to tally three or more bonus points via the program.
- The No. 71 team secured Spire Motorsports’ first Busch Light Pole Award in the history of the organization’s Cup Series program in March at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The 28.833-second lap marks the fastest lap recorded in NASCAR’s seventh-generation Cup Series car (2022-present) at the 1.5-mile Nevada oval. The team also earned Spire Motorsports’ first stage win during the Grant Park 165 on the streets of downtown Chicago.
- McDowell’s team earned a handsome $100,000 payday and a trip to Victory Lane after winning the Mechanix Wear Pit Crew Challenge during May’s NASCAR All-Star Weekend at North Wilkesboro (N.C.) Speedway. The crew’s blistering 12.587-second stop topped all entries for both the NASCAR All-Star Open and NASCAR All-Star Race, earning the title of the fastest team on pit road.
Michael McDowell Quote
You have shown speed at Gateway in the past. How do you build on that this weekend?
“World Wide Technology was fun last year — sitting on the pole, setting the track record and leading a bunch of laps. We weren’t great in the race, but we had a lot of speed leading up to that.
So we’ve got things to work on for sure, but I feel confident about St. Louis in general — the track and having good speed there. You always feel like when you’ve had success, you have something to build on, so I’m looking forward to getting back to St. Louis this weekend.”
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.
- Peterson called McDowell’s 2024 pole position when the potent duo set a track record of 138.598 mph (32.368 seconds).
- The 34-year-old, West Bend, Wis., native called McDowell’s ninth-place finish in the 2023 Enjoy Illinois 300.
Carson Hocevar – Driver, No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet ZL1
- Carson Hocevar returns to the site of his NASCAR Cup Series debut for the Enjoy Illinois 300 at World Wide Technology Raceway in Madison, Ill. The 22-year-old driver owns two previous starts at the 1.25-mile track with a best finish of eighth earned in 2024.
- On June 4, 2023, 19-year-old Hocevar was called up from the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series to fill in for Spire Motorsports driver Corey LaJoie at WWTR, who coincidentally was filling in for Chase Elliott. At the time, Hocevar had earned his first CRAFTSMAN Truck Series win at Texas Motor Speedway and was riding a streak of four-straight top-five finishes. The Portage, Mich., native started 26th for the 240-lap Cup Series race and was running in the mid-teens when a brake rotor failed and ended the No. 7 team’s day. Hocevar went on to compete in eight of the last nine Cup Series events in 2023 for another team before signing full-time with Spire Motorsports prior to the 2024 season.
- Outside of Cup Series competition, Hocevar made four CRAFTSMAN Truck Series starts at WWTR resulting in one top-five and two top-10 finishes.
- Exactly one year prior to his Cup debut, during his second year of full-time competition for Niece Motorsports, Hocevar was running fifth as the field took the white flag for the CRAFTSMAN Truck Series race at WWTR. Hocevar was shuffled out of position after contact with a competitor and sustained hard contact to the driver side door as the field approached the checkered flag. Despite a broken tibia in his right ankle that resulted in surgery, Hocevar was back behind the wheel just one week later at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway, where he earned his only CRAFTSMAN Truck Series pole award and finished sixth.
- Hocevar most recently earned his seventh top-10 finish of the 2025 season with a venue-best ninth-place result at Darlington Raceway in Sunday’s Southern 500. Hocevar started 26th and recovered from a spin early in Stage 2 to match Spire Motorsports’ best result at the track.
- Zeigler Auto Group returns to the No. 77 Chevrolet ZL1 for Sunday’s Enjoy Illinois 300, Zeigler 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
World Wide Technology Raceway has been the site of some very high and very low points of your career. Is there a certain feeling you get when you pull into the track on race weekend?
“I try not to think about the wreck and the injury. I think that’s what most drivers would do, you just can’t worry about that. The Cup debut and then coming back last year to kind of make up for how that first race ended, means a lot more to me. That’s where all of this started. It’s where Spire Motorsports and Jeff Dickerson first saw something in me that made them think it might be good for me to move up. Whether other people think it was good or not doesn’t really matter, but Gateway is a special place for me and I love racing there every year.”
You’ve come a long way since that first Cup Series race in 2023. If there was anything you’d tell that version of yourself, what would it be?
“Just keep being you. There will be a lot of tough days, but the good ones make up for them. You’ll piss off a lot of drivers, and that isn’t always fun, but you’ll end up with a good group of guys on the No. 77 who have your back and believe in you.”
Atop the No. 77 Box – Crew Chief Luke Lambert
- Crew chief Luke Lambert has called two Cup Series races at WWTR, including Hocevar’s 2024 eighth-place finish.
- Following Sunday’s ninth-place effort at Darlington, Lambert now owns 99 top-10 finishes as a crew chief in NASCAR’s premier series.
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 CRAFTSMAN Truck Series win came on May 30, 2025, when Rajah Caruth took the checkered flag in the Rackley Roofing 200 at Nashville (Tenn.) Superspeedway.
In 2025, Spire Motorsports campaigns the Nos. 7, 71 and 77 Chevrolets in the NASCAR Cup Series. The team also fields the Nos. 7, 71 and 77 Chevrolet Silverados in the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series and an ARCA Menards Series Chevrolet in select events.
