Over the six years, Spire Motorsports has had some remarkable moments since going full-time to the NASCAR Cup Series back in 2019. The highlight of its first season was Justin Haley’s surprising victory at the 2019 Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway. More recently, Corey LaJoie rattled off two straight top-fives at Atlanta Motor Speedway in 2022 and 2023. And now a week after, Atlanta Motor Speedway was the site of another close call for the team, with Carson Hocevar coming within a touching distance of a win.
The Jeff Dickerson-led team has made some massive changes to their driver lineup in the off-season. Being crowned as the “Mini Hendrick” team, the expectations were to compete for race wins and playoff spots. And last Sunday’s race was evidence enough that Spire Motorsports is done being a mid-pack race team. This sentiment echoed in Hocevar’s post-race comments, “I finished second. We’re here to win races, not be a boy band and love each other and play on the playground together.”
Despite the drama surrounding Hocevar’s unapologetic style of racing, he is laser-focused on his task. That is to elevate Spire’s on-track performance, even if it means ruffling some feathers.
Carson Hocevar is looking at the bigger picture
Hocevar isn’t waiting for the best opportunity that could cement his place among the top contenders in NASCAR. After the rookie season, he’s ready to elevate his stature in the garage with his fearless brand of racing. While the likes of Kyle Busch and Ryan Blaney were left fuming with Hocevar’s on-track antics, he left Atlanta with a career-best runner-up finish. And that was the most important takeaway for the 22-year-old in the bigger scheme of things.
“Yeah. I mean, for us to put a spire car second, and to have a shot to win is really special for us. Like, we ran super good at the Clash at the all run, fit the six, to kinda hopefully start our year and then to run top 10, get stage points, you know, finish second.” Carson Hocevar said this in an interview with Claire B Lang.
He started the season with a decent result at the Bowman Gray Stadium with a modest P16 finish. But when it came to collecting points at the Daytona 500 he failed to make a significant impact. With a P30 finish, he was already staring at the prospect of playing catch-up as he wasn’t sure what Atlanta would deliver. So he knew he had to throw caution out the window when the green flag dropped for the final restart.
“Number one, it took us from thirty-second in points to fifteenth and gave us a really good reset right after Daytona. But just having A spire car be upfront, be in contention all day long and get used to it. I hope it becomes the new normal for us. And that’s that’s our plan is to be up there and show, you know, our organization, our team, our group, our number, with me, like, we’re all planning on being up there.” Hocevar explained further.
While @CarsonHocevar said post race @ATLMotorSpdwy , “I didn’t realize we weren’t racing back to the line )”…I asked Hocevar today about “racing back “…well kind of (fraction of caution) …most of us will never know what that feels like…He gave me a good answer… pic.twitter.com/JGvY0u6ZVf
— Claire B Lang (@ClaireBLang) February 25, 2025
It has to be noted that Spire Motorsports have rolled out the big guns with changes in the off-season. They roped in talented driver Justin Haley who’s back in the Spire seat and also added an experienced driver in Michael McDowell. The biggest signing of all was of Rodney Childers who is calling the shots for the No. 7 team with Haley. So you see, Hocevar has all the reason to be optimistic and it will be interesting to see how his team carries this momentum forward.
However, the Circuit of The Americas awaits next for all the seasoned NASCAR drivers, along with the mixed complexities of the changing tracks. Can Carson Hocevar keep up with his rank going ahead?
Hocevar is on a double-duty for the COTA weekend
Apart from his Cup Series commitments with Spire Motorsports, Hocevar will be competing in the Xfinity Series race in Austin, Texas. He will be piloting the No. 14 Trophy Tractor Chevy Camaro with SS Greenlight Racing. Garrett Smithley is the one making way for Hocevar, who last competed in the series back in 2023.
In 2024, the 22-year-old won the Sunoco Rookie of the Year award. And one of the key areas where he made significant gains was the road course. The P3 finish at Watkins Glen was Hocevar’s best finish in the Cup Series before Atlanta heroics. Apart from extra seat time at the newly configured 2.3-mile layout, Hocevar is relying on supernatural forces to elevate his Cup racing performance.
“Thankful to be given the call to drive this beautiful Trophy Tractor No. 14,” and “Appreciate Garrett Smithley’s willingness to let me drive this race car. The last time I got to drive an Xfinity car at COTA, we won the next week!” The driver said this on X.
After two superspeedway races, a frantic road course event is a perfect opportunity for Hocevar to collect more points. Perhaps this race in COTA could be McDowell’s moment to shine and justify his decision to leave the Ford camp and join an aspiring Chevy team.
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