Spire Motorsports YellaWood 500 Race Report 2026

Carson Hocevar earned the best finish for Spire Motorsports with a sixth-place effort in Sunday's YellaWood 500 at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway. Michael McDowell rounded out the top 10, while Daniel Suárez finished 18th. Hocevar is 10th in The Chase standings with Suárez 14th and McDowell sits 20th in points with two races remaining.

Hocevar, driver of the No. 77 Spectrum Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, started 26th for Sunday’s race. A pit-road speeding penalty during green-flag pit stops in Stage 1 pinned the Portage, Mich., native one lap down, until the conclusion of Stage 2 when he was awarded the free pass. Hocevar restarted 23rd on Lap 147 and reached the top five on Lap 155. A multi-vehicle incident on Lap 184 sent Hocevar to the the DVP area during a red-flag delay and he returned to the track in the 14th position for a green-white-checkered finish that saw him cross the finish line in sixth. McDowell, driver of the No. 71 RCA Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, started 23rd and entered the top five just 35 laps into the race. He maintained top-15 track position while avoiding carnage throughout the day to set the No. 71 team up for an eighth-place restart in Overtime. McDowell was scored fifth with one lap to go and was shuffled out of line coming out of Turn 4, but ultimately crossed the finish line in 10th to earn his seventh top-10 finish of the year. Suárez, driver of the No. 7 Freeway Insurance Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, started 13th at Talladega. In the opening stage, the Monterrey, Mexico native was served a speeding penalty during the first green-flag stop of the day, leaving him scored 38th and one lap down. On Lap 131, Suárez was caught up in a multi-car accident that left damage to the No. 7 Chevy. Despite the setbacks, Suárez finished 18th to earn his 27th top 20 of the season.

The NASCAR Cup Series Chase continues next Sunday, Nov. 1 at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway. The 500-lap race from Martinsville Speedway will be broadcast live on NBC beginning at 2 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). The 35th of 36 points-paying races on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule, and the ninth race of The Chase, will be broadcast live on the Motor Racing Network and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.

“We put ourselves in a hole today and it was just tough for us to get back on the lead lap. The speeding penalty put us behind, and then we got caught up in that accident. We did everything we could to get back in the fight, but sometimes things just don’t go your way. I’m proud of my guys for continuing to work hard and never giving up. We’ll take what we can from today and move on to the next one.”

"That last lap didn't go how we had hoped for our No. 71 crew. I ended up on the outside of four-wide there and I'm not even completely sure what happened. It felt like the No. 11 was coming up the track and I was there when it all got shuffled. So, that was unfortunate. I thought we had some decent momentum on that last lap and it all kind of broke up coming to the tri-oval. We will take a top-10 finish for RCA and look at how we could have done things a little differently."

“In that wreck toward the end, I only really got flats and a hole on the right-side door. Other than that, we were fine. I have to really thank the tow truck guy for getting us back to pit road quickly. We’re not allowed to throw it in reverse and drive out of the garage, they have to push me out of the garage, so we had everyone back there helping. My team put four tires on, pushed me out of the garage and I got going. I thought we had to beat the pace car to the line, but I think we could have waited another lap, so we actually beat the field and got almost a lap ahead. That just shows how fast my team works, so all the credit to them.”

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 victory came October 23, 2026, when Sammy Smith won the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Race  at Talladega Superspeedway.

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 also fields the No. 77 410 sprint car in Interstate Batteries High Limit Racing competition.

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