Spire Motorsports Brickyard 400 Race Report 2026

Spire Motorsports driver Carson Hocevar earned a venue-best ninth-place finish in Sunday's Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS). The 23-year-old driver also earned his second pole of 2026 and third of his NASCAR Cup Series career. Daniel Suárez and Michael McDowell secured top-20 results with 17th and 18th-place results, respectively. Hocevar gained two positions in the driver championship point standings to sit fifth with four races remaining before The Chase field is set. Suárez is 11th with McDowell in 20th.

After starting from the top spot, Hocevar paced the field in the No. 77 Zeigler Auto Group Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 for the opening 31 circuits. The Portage, Mich., native secured fourth and sixth-place finishes in the first two stages to add to his points total on the day. After restarting 12th following a caution on Lap 121, Hocevar battled to a ninth-place finish to earn his ninth top-10 finish of the season. Suárez earned a venue-best starting position of second in the No. 7 Freeway Insurance Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 to join Hocevar on the front row, missing the pole by just 0.056 seconds. The Monterrey, Mexico native finished seventh in Stage 1 and 10th in Stage 2, before ultimately finishing 17th following a 34-lap green-flag run to end the race, preventing the No. 7 team from improving their track position. McDowell also earned a venue-best starting position of sixth in his 14 Cup Series start at IMS. He drove the No. 71 NEFCO Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 to third and eighth-place finishes in the first two stages, respectively, and was running eighth prior to a yellow flag on Lap 121. McDowell went into fuel-saving mode when the race returned to green on Lap 127 to make it the final 34 laps, dropping back to 20th. Once given the all clear to go hard, McDowell gained two spots before reaching the checkered flag.

The NASCAR Cup Series is off next weekend before returning to action at Iowa Speedway on Sunday, August 9. The Iowa 350 powered by Ethanol will be broadcast live on USA beginning at 3:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). The 23rd of 36 points-paying races on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule will be broadcast live on the Motor Racing Network and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.

“We started off strong in our Freeway Insurance Chevrolet today, but we struggled to make the passes we needed once we got caught in traffic. We kept losing spots and needed better track position to really show what we had. The team worked hard all day and made adjustments to improve our Chevrolet, but the cautions didn’t go our way at the end. We’ll take what we learned today and keep pushing forward.”

“A good points day here in Indy, but that debris caution hurt us pretty badly and we had to sit on pit road longer to fill up on fuel. Track position is so important here, we had a great NEFCO Chevrolet Camaro and not the result to show for it, so that hurts because I think we had enough for a top-five day. But that’s part of it. Our whole Spire Motorsports organization was fast and we saw that in qualifying, so there is a lot to be proud of coming out of this weekend. We just needed a little bit more, but we will go into the off weekend with some solid momentum leading into the last few weeks of the regular season.”

“The first caution just kind of put us into a bad spot on fuel. The reason why we took tires was just because we were going to have to wait on fuel, so we might as well just put four on. I was able to pass three cars, which might have been the most in the field, it seemed like. When we got our No. 77 Zeigler Auto Group Chevrolet in clean air, we were kind of in our own zip code. Our lap times there at the end, we were way faster than most of the field. Overall, it was a good points day for this team. We were the top Chevy of the field, results-wise, and now were the top Chevy in the points standings, so that’s pretty good for us.”

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 July 7, 2019. Less than three years later, William Byron drove Spire Motorsports’ No. 7 Chevrolet Silverado its first NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series win April 7, 2022, at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway. The team’s most recent win came on May 24, 2026, when Daniel Suárez took the checkered flag in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway.

In 2026, Spire Motorsports campaigns 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.

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