Hometown: Portage, MI

Birthday: January 28, 2003

Carson Hocevar is the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Rookie of the Year. The Portage, Mich., native earned top rookie honors on the strength of one top-five, six top-10 and 13 top-15 finishes in NASCAR’s premier division. Hocevar impressed throughout his rookie campaign and was the top-finishing rookie in 15 of the division’s 36 points-paying races. In his first full-season at the controls of the No. 77 Chevrolet, Hocevar brought home a career best third-place finish in the Cup Series September visit to Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International. The 21-year-old made his NCS debut for Spire Motorsports on June 4, 2020 at World Wide Technology Raceway. Hocevar was first paired with crew chief Luke Lambert in 2023 when he competed behind the wheel of the No. 42 machine in eight of the divisions final 10 races. He scored a then career-best 11th-place finish that season at the Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway. Lambert followed Hocevar to Spire Motorsports where he was chosen to lead the team’s No. 77 efforts for the 2024 season. Hocevar is a four-time NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series race winner and a standout at every level in which he’s competed. He is the third Michigan-born driver to earn NASCAR Cup Series Rookie of the Year honors. Hocevar first took to the track at just seven-years-old and success quickly followed when he complied 70-plus feature wins and 15 national championships in the USAC quarter midget ranks.

Hometown: Mt. Airy, NC

Birthday: October 2, 1982

Luke Lambert enters his third season as the crew chief of Spire Motorsports’ No. 77 team with 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Rookie of the Year Carson Hocevar. Lambert, a native of Mount Airy, N.C., joined Spire Motorsports in 2024 following a stint at Legacy Motor Club where he guided the No. 42 team in NASCAR Cup Series competition. The driver/crew chief pairing first teamed up when Hocevar drove for Legacy M.C. in eight of the final 10 races of 2023, and has racked up three top fives, 15 top 10s, 28 top 15s and 45 top 20s since.

Prior to his time at Legacy M.C., Lambert called the shots for Noah Gragson and JR Motorsports’ No. 9 team in the NASCAR Xfinity Series. The team racked up eight wins – Phoenix Raceway, Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway, Pocono (Pa.) Raceway, Darlington (S.C) Raceway, Kansas Speedway, Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway, Texas Motor Speedway and Homestead-Miami Speedway – 21 top fives and led a staggering 1,010 laps, all of which were series-leading marks. They also registered two poles, 26 top 10s, an average starting position of 6.9 and an 8.1 average finish. Lambert’s efforts earned the No. 9 crew a Championship 4 berth and a runner-up finish in the series’ championship point standings. Before the lone season at JR Motorsports, Lambert was the crew chief for Chris Buescher and the No. 17 RFK Racing team in 2020 and 2021. He helped Buescher to three top fives and 16 top 10s, including a third-place finish in the 2020 Daytona 500.

Lambert spent the first 15 years of his professional career in Welcome, N.C., at Richard Childress Racing. Upon college graduation, he began with the organization as a shop engineer, specializing his talents in vehicle dynamics chassis work while serving as a junior race engineer for test and data acquisition sessions. Lambert earned the nod to become the race engineer for the No. 31 NASCAR Cup Series team in advance of the 2007 season, hitting the road full time alongside driver Jeff Burton and crew chief Scott Miller. He worked closely with Miller for the next three seasons, winning in their seventh race together at Texas Motor Speedway in April 2007. In Lambert’s five seasons as Burton’s race engineer, he collected three wins, 27 top fives, 61 top 10s, 78 top 15s and led 880 laps. The team reached the Chase for the Cup in both 2007 and 2008, highlighted by a third-place result in the series’ championship point standings in 2008.

With 17 races remaining in the 2011 campaign, Richard Childress Racing made a change atop the No. 31 box, elevating Lambert to his first crew chief role. The team had yet to finish inside the top 10 in the first 19 events, but rounded out the year with two top fives, five top 10s and 10 top 15s in the final 17 races.

Lambert transitioned to Richard Childress Racing’s NASCAR Xfinity Series program in 2012, joining forces with Cup Series veteran Elliott Sadler. The duo won two of the first four races of the season at Phoenix Raceway and Bristol Motor Speedway, and reached victory lane a total of four times on the year after triumphs at Iowa Speedway and Chicagoland Speedway in July. Ultimately, the No. 2 team came a mere 23 points from the top spot in the series’ championship point standings. The championship runner ups rounded out the campaign with four poles, 15 top-five and 26 top-10 finishes, while pacing the field for 366 circuits.

In 2013, Lambert returned to NASCAR Cup Series competition, once again leading the charge for the No. 31 team and reuniting with Jeff Burton in his farewell season of competition. The organization brought in veteran Ryan Newman to pilot the No. 31 Chevrolet following Burton’s retirement, sparking a new driver/crew chief relationship that would span the next five seasons. In their first season as a pairing in 2014, the duo snagged five top fives, 16 top 10s and 26 top 15s en route to a berth in the inaugural Championship 4 finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, earning Newman a career-best runner-up finish in the series’ championship point standings. Over the course of five years, the pairing logged 19 top-five and 63 top-10 results, led 188 laps and earned Newman’s 18th and final victory at Phoenix Raceway in March 2017. Daniel Hemric received the call up in 2019 to embark on his rookie campaign under Lambert’s guidance in the newly branded No. 8 Chevrolet. The team registered a season-best fifth-place finish at Talladega Superspeedway in May and picked up their first Cup Series pole award at Kansas Speedway in October before clinching Rookie of the Year honors at season’s end.

Lambert graduated from North Carolina State University in 2005 with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering. During his time in Raleigh, N.C., he served as driver, mechanic and team leader for the Wolfpack Motorsports Formula SAE team. Growing up, he raced go karts at local short tracks before competing on Mount Airy High School’s football, cross country and wrestling teams.