Spire Motorsports Goodyear 400 Cup Series Race Advance

• In 28 NASCAR Cup Series starts at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway, Spire Motorsports has logged two top-10 and three top-15 finishes. Corey LaJoie (September 2024) and Carson Hocevar (August 2025) both earned team-best ninth-place results at “The Lady in Black”. Spire Motorsports fields the Nos. 7, 71 and 77 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1s in the Cup Series with Daniel Suarez, Michael McDowell and Hocevar, respectively.
• The Goodyear 400 will be televised live on FS1 Sunday, March 22 beginning at 3 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. The sixth of 36 points-paying races on the 2026 Cup Series calendar will be broadcast live on the Motor 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 NationsGuard Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 in Sunday’s Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway.
• The Monterrey, Mexico native has made 16 starts at Darlington, earning one top-10 and six top-20 finishes. His series/venue-best finish came in May 2022 where he finished 10th. Suárez holds an average starting position of 22.0 and an average finishing position of 23.1 at the famed “Lady in Black.”
• Last Spring in the Goodyear 400, Suárez started 30th and after battling handling issues early in the race, rallied to finish 15th.
• In the Cup Series most recent visit to the “Track Too Tough to Tame” last Fall, he started 17th but was involved in an early incident and relegated to a 25th-place result.
• Last week in Las Vegas, Suárez finished 18th to earn his third top-20 finish of the season.
• Five races into the 36-race NASCAR Cup Series season, Suárez sits 17th in points.
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• The two-time NASCAR Cup Series winner has made two NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series starts at Darlington, earning two top fives and two top 10s while leading 14 laps. He notched third-place finishes in September 2015 and 2016.
• The 34-year-old driver is a veteran of 328 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 are your thoughts heading into Darlington?
“Darlington is going to be a very interesting race. It will be very low grip with a low downforce package and high horsepower. It’s going to be a challenge for everyone – one I’m looking forward to. Hopefully, we can continue to have good speed and have a good race in the No. 7 NationsGuard Chevrolet.”

Atop the No. 7 Box – Crew Chief Ryan Sparks

• Ryan Sparks has called 207 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 finish at Darlington came in Fall 2024, where he led driver Corey LaJoie to a ninth-place finish. Sparks has called 12 races at Darlington and, overall, has led the charge in 99 races on intermediate tracks, resulting in two top-five and three top-10 efforts.
• 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 Delaware Life Chevrolet ZL1 in Sunday’s Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway.
• McDowell has secured three top-10 finishes in 21 career starts at “The Lady in Black,” all of which have come in the six events with NASCAR’s seventh generation Cup Series car. He has also made two NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series starts at the venue.
• To pair with his trio of top-10 finishes, the two-time Cup Series winner has registered seven top-20 finishes at “The Track Too Tough to Tame”.
• In the Cup Series’ most recent visit to Darlington, McDowell’s Travis Peterson-led team started 25th and found themselves running one position shy of the top 15, as the run progressed and rubber faded. The duo ultimately settled for a 33rd-place result.
• The Glendale, Ariz. native, earned a pair of top-10 Darlington finishes in 2022, when he came home seventh in the spring and sixth in the summer.
• Last weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, McDowell started deep in the field and soldiered home to a 26th-place finish.
• Across the first five races of the 2026 season, the 2021 Daytona 500 Champion currently sits 14th in points, the highest of Spire Motorsports’ three NASCAR Cup Series entries and has earned one top five, two top 10s and led 15 laps.
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Michael McDowell Quote
There is a lot of conversation about the tires and fall off in Darlington, what are you expecting?
“I try not to predict what it’s going to be like. It’s not that I don’t prepare—we had no downforce in 2014, so you’re slipping and sliding around, and you get used to what that feels like. After that, you had low horsepower and high downforce. We’ve had everything. So, I try not to predict too much because a lot of the time we think that it’s going to be huge and then oversell it. Then you have other times where you think the changes won’t make that much of a difference, and it’s a big deal. I don’t know where it will fall. It is a difficult track already, so if you take away downforce, I think it will make it more difficult, which is pretty obvious, but when you take away downforce, you won’t be able to utilize that power as much, either. It will be interesting to see. I think Darlington will be a fun weekend. On top of that, the weather is going to play a part; it could be 60 degrees, or it could be 80, but I am excited to see what the new package is going to be like. It will be fun.”

Atop the No. 71 Box – Crew Chief Travis Peterson

• Across 118 starts serving in the crew chief role, Travis Peterson has called eight poles, one win, eight top-five and 25 top-10 finishes.
• 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.
• 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.
• As a race engineer at JR Motorsports, Peterson was part of Chase Elliott’s 2014 NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Darlington win. 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 duo of Peterson and McDowell secured a 10th-place finish in the 2024 Goodyear 400.

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

• Carson Hocevar will race Spire Motorsports’ No. 77 Chili’s Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 in Sunday’s Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway, marking his sixth start in NASCAR’s premier division at the historic venue. Hocevar will sport a throwback design this weekend, “The Marg Machine”, honoring Dale Earnhardt’s iconic 1981 blue-and-yellow paint scheme.
• Hocevar will pull double duty on the weekend and also race Spire Motorsports’ No. 77 Delaware Life Chevrolet Silverado RST in Friday’s CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Buckle Up South Carolina 200.
• The No. 77 team is currently 15th in the series’ point standings, thanks in part to a collection of 23 stage points through the first five points-paying races of the year. Hocevar was also awarded nine points for a second-place finish in the America 250 Florida Duel at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway.
• Last week at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the 23-year-old driver started 19th and worked his way inside the top 10 by Stage 2. Unfortunately, a tire issue with five laps remaining in the segment forced the young driver to pit road under green-flag conditions where he lost a lap to the leaders, ultimately leaving him 22nd in the final rundown.
• In the series’ most recent stop to the famed egg-shaped oval last August, the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Rookie of the Year earned a venue-best ninth-place result. Hocevar started 26th and recovered from a spin early in Stage 2 to match Spire Motorsports’ best result at Darlington.
• In last April’s Goodyear 400, the Portage, Mich., native turned the fastest lap in practice and qualified 13th. A punctured tire in the opening laps of the 400-mile race caused Hocevar to spin, forcing the team to pit under green-flag conditions where they fell a lap down, leaving them 32nd when the checkered flag waved.
• Hocevar hit the ground running at “The Track Too Tough to Tame.” In his first Cup Series start at Darlington in the 2023 Southern 500, he started 15th and finished 17th in a race that marked just his second start in NASCAR’s premier division. He returned in 2024 with Spire Motorsports and qualified second, becoming the youngest driver to start on the front row at the facility. Hocevar ran inside the top 10 most of the evening until damage sustained with 32 laps to go forced the team to retire prior to the race’s scheduled distance.
• In CRAFTSMAN Truck Series competition, Hocevar owns four previous starts at “The Lady in Black”, tallying three top fives, including a runner-up finish in May 2022.
• Hocevar contested Spire Motorsports’ O’Reilly Auto Parts Series debut at Darlington in May 2023. He secured his first top 10 in the series with a sixth-place result.
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Carson Hocevar Quotes
What do you think about your paint scheme heading into Alumni Weekend?
“It’s cool that Chili’s, a huge consumer-facing brand, had the idea to honor Dale Earnhardt on Alumni Weekend with a really cool scheme. They basically changed all their brand guidelines to replicate the original car as much as possible for this specific race. Unfortunately, I never got the opportunity to watch him race, but I watch a ton of old races and have great respect and admiration for those who have come before me. It will be really cool to honor him this weekend.”

How does Darlington fit your driving style?
“I’ve always been comfortable at Darlington. There’s just not a lot of grip and you have to save your stuff as much as possible. We’re always fast in qualifying at Darlington but I’ve gotten caught up in incidents that keep us from getting the finishes. This weekend is a little bit of an unknown with more horsepower and our new Camaro body, so the pressure will be on the crew chiefs and engineers. I know Luke (Lambert) and the No. 77 guys will bring us a really good car and we will have the opportunity to run well.”

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 85 races together.
• The 16-year veteran crew chief has called 18 NASCAR Cup Series events at Darlington, earning six top 10s, most recently with Hocevar in the 2025 Southern 500. He tacks on a trio of top-10 results between 2007-2010 as a race engineer for Jeff Burton during his time at Richard Childress Racing.
• The Mount Airy, N.C., native led Noah Gragson to Victory Lane at “The Lady in Black” in September 2022. Gragson led 82 of the event’s 147 laps but was running third when the field took the white flag. He survived a thrilling finish with Sheldon Creed and Kyle Larson, passing both drivers in Turns 3 and 4.

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.