Spire Motorsports Pennzoil 400 Cup Series Race Advance

• In 28 NASCAR Cup Series starts at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (LVMS), Spire Motorsports has logged three top-15 and nine top-20 finishes. Justin Haley earned a team-best 14th-place result at the 1.5-mile oval after Michael McDowell earned the organization’s first pole last March. Spire Motorsports fields the Nos. 7, 71 and 77 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1s in the Cup Series with Daniel Suarez, McDowell and Carson Hocevar, respectively.
• The Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube will be televised live on FS1 Sunday, March 15 beginning at 4 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. The fifth of 36 points-paying events on the 2026 Cup Series calendar will be broadcast live on the Performance Racing Network and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.

Daniel Suárez – Driver, No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet Camaro ZL1

• Daniel Suárez will pilot Spire Motorsports’ No. 7 Freeway Insurance Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 in Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube at LVMS.
• The 34-year-old driver has made 17 starts at LVMS, earning two top-five, four top-10 and 12 top-20 results. He’s also led 168 laps total at LVMS, the most laps Suárez has led at any track on the current Cup Series schedule. Across his last seven races in Las Vegas, the driver of the No. 7 Chevy has finished inside the top 20 in all but one.
• Last Spring, Suárez started 23rd and finished a venue-best second, leading 12 laps and posting one of his best runs of 2025. Suárez held the lead with 20 laps to go but eventual race winner Josh Berry took control of the top spot with 12 laps remaining and drove to victory.
• Last October at LVMS, Suárez ran inside the top 15 for much of the day but finished 20th after pit-road miscues interrupted his strategy.
• In the 2024 Pennzoil 400, Suárez led 57 laps and came away with a solid third-place effort. Suárez’s 57 laps led was his most in a single race at LVMS.
• Four races into the 36-race season, Suárez sits 17th in the Cup Series driver standings.
• Last week in Phoenix, Suárez sustained heavy front-end damage that ultimately ended his day early and resulted in a 30th-place finish. Despite the setback, the NASCAR Cup Series veteran had a strong start, finished seventh in Stage 1 and earned four bonus points.
• Freeway Insurance was established in 1987 and is one of the largest and fastest-growing personal lines insurance brokers in the United States, offering coverage through a “click, call, or come in” approach that connects customers nationwide. The company continually researches, grows, and diversifies its product offerings to stay responsive to the evolving insurance market. Freeway provides a wide range of options—from basic to premium coverage—in auto, truck, commercial vehicle, homeowners, renters, small business, motorcycle, recreational vehicle, fire, and flood insurance. In 2008, Freeway Insurance became part of Confie, the nation’s leading personal lines insurance distribution company. Customers can access Freeway Insurance through neighborhood offices, online at www.freeway.com, or by calling (800) 300-0227.
• The Monterrey, Mexico native has made three NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series starts at LVMS, resulting in two top-fives, three top-10s and three laps led. He recorded his best finish at Las Vegas (second) in March 2016.
• The 34-year-old is a veteran of 327 Cup Series starts and has notched two wins (Sonoma Raceway in 2022 and Atlanta Motor Speedway in 2024), 25 top fives and 76 top 10s in NASCAR’s premier division. Suarez has led a total of 907 laps and has earned three poles since entering the series full time in 2017.

Daniel Suárez Quotes
What makes Las Vegas so exciting and challenging?
“Vegas is exciting because it has a lot of character. It’s a mile-and-a-half racetrack with lots of options. You can run the middle, the bottom, or the top. It sits out in the middle of the desert, so it can get pretty windy. The car is very sensitive to the wind, and those conditions can change quite a bit, which makes it a challenge. The wind and weather in Las Vegas is also pretty unpredictable, so you just have to be able to feel the car and figure things out as the race goes on.”

You finished second at Las Vegas last Spring. What’s the biggest win you’ve gotten in Vegas, whether that be a personal victory at the casino or a good run at the racetrack?
“I’m not a gambler. The only place I gamble is at the racetrack. Finishing second last year was very painful. Sometimes it’s almost better to finish fifth than second because second is just so close – especially the way I finished. I feel like there were a couple of things we could have done differently, but that’s racing. You live and learn. Vegas has been a good place for me in the past, and I’m looking forward to going back.”

Atop the No. 7 Box – Crew Chief Ryan Sparks

• Ryan Sparks has called 206 NASCAR Cup Series races, earning five top-five and 11 top-10 finishes since making his Cup Series debut atop the pit box in 2020.
• The Winston-Salem, N.C., native’s best result at LVMS came in Spring 2022, where he led the No. 7 team to a 15th-place finish. Sparks has called 11 races at Vegas and overall has led the charge in 98 races on intermediate tracks, resulting in two top-five and three top-10 finishes.
• Sparks joined Spire Motorsports in 2021, where he served as both Crew Chief and Competition Director, leading the organization’s competitive and technical efforts. In 2026, Sparks serves in a singular role as crew chief for Daniel Suárez.
• Sparks brings more than a decade of experience across all three national series, highlighted by 13 seasons at Richard Childress Racing and contributions to title-winning campaigns in the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series (2011) and O’Reilly Auto Parts Series (2013).

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

• Michael McDowell will pilot Spire Motorsports’ No. 71 Workforce Chevrolet ZL1 in Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 Presented by Jiffy Lube at LVMS.
• Across 24 previous Cup Series starts at LVMS, McDowell owns seven top-20 finishes with a series/venue best finish of 16th, both recorded last season.
• The Cup Series veteran calls Glendale, Ariz., home, but early in his racing career, McDowell and his older brother, Billy, moved to Las Vegas to turn their karting dreams into reality. The brotherly duo built and sold karts in the area to kickstart their racing careers, laying the foundation for a 20-year path and a pair of wins in NASCAR’s premier division.
• March 11th, will mark Michael McDowell Day in Glendale, Ariz. The hometown hero received the keys to the city following his 2021 Daytona 500 win.
• Last weekend at Phoenix Raceway, the father-of-five secured his second consecutive top-10 result. This marks McDowell’s first back-to-back top-10 finishes since Spring of 2024.
• The No. 71 team secured Spire Motorsports’ first Busch Light Pole Award last March at LVMS. McDowell’s 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.
• Despite limited appearances in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, McDowell has made a pair of starts at LVMS on NASCAR’s junior circuit, highlighted by a sixth-place finish in 2009.
• With 32 points-paying races left on the 2026 schedule, McDowell is eighth in the driver standings and holds a 13-point cushion to the cutline. Over the first four races of the season, he has notched one top-five, and two top-10 finishes.
• Across the first four races of the season, the veteran racer has earned a 13.0 average start and a solid 14.0 average finish.
• Workforce is an Occupational Health and Safety Solutions firm based in Pittsburgh, Penn., with partners throughout North America. For over thirty years, Workforce has provided support to clients through the operation of its three divisions – Work Injury Management, Medical Bill Repricing, and Employer Services. The Work Injury Management Division connects employees to telephonic physician services with expedited access to a nationwide network of medical providers, including specialty, imaging, and therapy services – and employer access to recordable injury investigation, injury impact mitigation services, preferred medical provider panel development, and more. The Medical Bill Repricing Division provides cost containment services by minimizing incident, experience, and injury frequency rates while reducing exposure to insurance premium increases. The Employer Services Division provides employee onboarding services, corporate safety committee oversight, required annual certification coordination, and integration of any required testing, licensing, or accreditation. Since 1995, Workforce remains focused on developing partnerships with employers that facilitate a positive impact on any health and safety issues encountered at the workplace.

Michael McDowell Quote
You’ve earned back-to-back top-10 finishes over the last two weeks. What are you expecting to see at the first 1.5-mile track this season?
“We have some good momentum going into this weekend but Las Vegas is one of those tracks that really shows where you’re at as a team. These 1.5-mile tracks will tell a lot about our cars and our program. This West Coast swing is the perfect chance to see how far we’ve come and show the time we put in during the offseason. I’m proud of the effort from everyone at Spire Motorsports. All three cars are in a competitive points position, and I’m ready to see our 1.5-mile package. We had decent speed there in the last few years and sat on the pole last March. Now, with more experience and a bigger book of notes, we’re ready to build on this momentum going into Vegas.”

Atop the No. 71 Box – Crew Chief Travis Peterson

• Across 117 starts serving in the crew chief role, Peterson has captured one win, eight poles, eight top-five, and 25 top-10 finishes.
• The 34-year-old contributed to several victories during his tenure at RFK Racing, Hendrick Motorsports and JR Motorsports. He played a key role in Chase Elliott’s 2014 O’Reilly Auto Parts Series championship. Peterson was also part of Earnhardt’s three-win 2015 Cup Series team.
• In four previous races at LVMS, Peterson has led his team to one pole, four top-20, and six top-25 finishes, all with McDowell behind the wheel.
• In his previous role as race engineer for Hendrick Motorsports, Peterson was instrumental in Dale Earnhardt, Jr.’s fourth-place finish at the 2015 event.
• Peterson is a mechanical engineering graduate of the Williams States Lee College of Engineering at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. The West Bend, Wis., native earned his degree in 2012.

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

• Carson Hocevar will race Spire Motorsports’ No. 77 Chili’s Ride The ‘Dente Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 in Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 at LVMS, marking his sixth start in NASCAR’s premier division at the popular Nevada oval. Hocevar will Ride the ‘Dente Again’te in a rhinestone-studded livery and firesuit inspired by Nudie Cohn, the original “Rhinestone Cowboy”.
• The No. 77 team sits 14th in points thanks in part to a collection of 23 stage points through the first four points-paying races of the year. Hocevar stands as one of only two drivers to earn stage points in every event this season. He was also awarded nine points for a second-place finish in the America 250 Florida Duel at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway.
• Last week at Phoenix Raceway, the 23-year-old driver qualified seventh but was forced to start from the tail of the field after the team discovered an alternator issue in final pre-race checks Sunday morning. Despite slicing his way inside the top 10 early on, a position Hocevar held for much of the afternoon, handling challenges late in the event hampered his progress, leaving him 20th in the final scoring rundown.
• The No. 77 crew has been hitting their stride, averaging a 10.17-second four-tire pit stop last weekend at Phoenix, the fourth-fastest average on pit road over seven stops.
• In last March’s Pennzoil 400, the Portage, Mich., native maintained top-10 track position throughout the afternoon but contact while leaving his pit stall during the final sequence of the day dealt performance-hindering damage to his Chevy. Still the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Rookie of the Year managed to finish the day with a respectable 15th-place finish.
• The five-time CRAFTSMAN Truck Series race winner owns four previous starts at LVMS where he registered a series/venue-best seventh-place result in March 2023.
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Carson Hocevar Quotes
What are you most looking forward to heading to Las Vegas?
“I am excited to get to Las Vegas this weekend. While I think we show speed and can compete up front anywhere, we proved last year we really excel at the intermediates, including the mile-and-a-halves. We won the pole at Texas, started on the front row at Charlotte, and had good speed at Vegas last year. They are my favorite tracks and I am expecting to be really competitive come Sunday.”

Atop the No. 77 Box – Crew Chief Luke Lambert

• Crew chief Luke Lambert enters his third season at Spire Motorsports and fourth with Carson Hocevar. The duo has logged one pole award, four top-five and 16 top-10 finishes in 84 races together.
• The 16-year veteran crew chief has called 19 NASCAR Cup Series events at LVMS, earning one top five and four top 10s, highlighted by a third-place finish with Ryan Newman in March 2015.
• In three NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series races at Las Vegas, Lambert-prepared cars have yet to finish outside the top-three. He and driver Noah Gragson earned a pair of runner-up finishes at the venue in 2022.

About Spire Motorsports …
Spire Motorsports fields full-time entries in the NASCAR Cup Series, NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series and Interstate Batteries High Limit Racing.

The team, co-owned by longtime NASCAR industry executive Jeff Dickerson and TWG Motorsports CEO Dan Towriss, 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 Feb. 21, 2026, when Kyle Busch took the checkered flag in the Fr8 Racing 208 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

In 2026, Spire Motorsports will campaign the Nos. 7, 71 and 77 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1s in the NASCAR Cup Series and the Nos. 7 and 77 Chevrolet Silverado RSTs in the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series. The Mooresville, N.C., organization will also field the No. 77 410 sprint car in Interstate Batteries High Limit Racing competition.