Spire Motorsports Hollywood Casino 400 Race Report 2026

Daniel Suárez led the way for Spire Motorsports with a 14th-place finish in Sunday's Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway, earning his 16th top 15 of the season. Michael McDowell took the checkered flag in the 27th position while Carson Hocevar finished 33rd following an incident in Stage 2. With six races remaining on the season, Hocevar and Suárez are 11th and 16th in The Chase standings, respectively, with McDowell ranked 20th.

Suárez, driver of the No. 7 WIMNA Nation/Gainbridge Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, started 14th after inclement weather canceled Saturday’s practice and qualifying sessions, forcing the starting lineup to be set per the NASCAR Cup Series rulebook. In the opening segment of the fourth race of The Chase, Suárez battled balance issues and communicated to his team his cool shirt wasn’t working. The No. 7 team worked to alleviate the handling issues ahead of the Final Stage, allowing the Monterrey, Mexico native to run inside the top 10 prior to crossing the finish line in 14th. McDowell started 22nd on the day, but difficulties on pit road in the first two stages put the No. 77 Delaware Life team at a disadvantage ahead of the final segment. Despite the adversity, McDowell gained six positions in the final 40 laps to finish 27th. Hocevar, driver of the No. 77 Zeigler Auto Group Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, started fourth and finished the same to score seven bonus points at the end of Stage 1. He continued to preserve top-10 track position in Stage 2 until contact on the Lap-121 restart dealt splitter and right-front damage to Hocevar’s machine. The No. 77 team worked to make complete repairs, but the change in balance and grip made moving through the field difficult. They were ultimately credited with a 33rd-place finish, three laps down.

The NASCAR Cup Series heads to Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday, Oct. 4 for the South Point 400. The 267-lap race from Las Vegas Motor Speedway will be broadcast live on USA beginning at 5:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). The 31st of 36 points-paying races on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule, and the fifth race of The Chase, will be broadcast live on the Performance Racing Network and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.

“In the first stage, the car felt disconnected. We were trying to find the balance and in Stage 2 it was pretty much the same. We kept making adjustments and trying to make it better. By the Final Stage, I felt like we had a better car and thought we had a top-10 car. We just needed a little bit more to finish where we wanted, but the No. 7 WIMNA Nation/Gainbridge team did a good job and never gave up all day.”

“It was a messy day here in Kansas. We had a few things not go our way and we fell behind pretty quick. From there, the balance wasn’t where we needed to be to make up the ground we had lost. It’s tough, our Delaware Life Chevrolet showed signs of solid speed early in the day. Once we got pushed to the back half of the field, it felt like we couldn’t recover from there. I have faith in our group, we have a few more 1.5-mile tracks coming up, so it’s going to be important to maximize those going forward and build into next season.”

"Obviously that was not the day we wanted to have after a good points race at Bristol last week, but that's what makes The Chase format so tough. I think we were all kind of going for the same spot and it just didn't work out. I hate it for the other guys that got caught up in it and for our team. We had a lot of speed early in the race and I feel like we can carry that over into next week."

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 May 24, 2026, when Daniel Suárez won the NASCAR Cup Series’ 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 also fields the No. 77 410 sprint car in Interstate Batteries High Limit Racing competition.

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