Spire Motorsports is just getting started
Of all the takeaways from Sunday's Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas, the third race of the NASCAR Cup Series season, perhaps the biggest has to be the performance of Spire Motorsports.
The team started out the weekend by winning Friday's Truck Series race with Rajah Caruth, and then Cup rookie Carson Hocevar brought home a top-15 finish while Corey LaJoie ran much of the race inside the top 10 before crashing late.
Much was made of the offseason Spire had when the team expanded its Cup operation to three cars, signing both Hocevar and Zane Smith to compete as rookies alongside the veteran LaJoie, while also buying out Kyle Busch Motorsports' Truck Series team. So far, NASCAR's most improved race team off the track is living up to the hype on it.
Spire has come a long way since first entering the NASCAR ranks in 2019. Back then, the team did not have a full-time driver and rotated between names such as Reed Sorenson, Garrett Smithley and Quin Houff. The No. 77 was frequently among the slowest cars in the field, although it did pick up a shocking victory with Justin Haley in the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona under extremely fortuitous circumstances.
2020 brought more of the same for Spire, although this time with no timely lightning strikes, and then in 2021 the team expanded to two cars while signing LaJoie to be a full-time driver for its new No. 7 entry. Yet LaJoie, despite being known for getting the most out of his equipment, still struggled to find results as he finished 29th in points that season and then 31st in 2022.
In 2023, though, the team seemed to significantly turn a corner. Spire ran two full-time drivers for the first time as Ty Dillon took over the No. 77, and LaJoie experienced the best year of his Cup career with a 25th-place points finish and three top-10s.
So this is a team that has been steadily improving for a while and now has finally reached the point of being able to compete near the front on non-superspeedway tracks. Las Vegas was the first such race of the season and therefore the first true test of which teams have speed in 2024, and given LaJoie and Hocevar's impressive runs, Spire has a bright future ahead.
The team has put together a formidable driver lineup, as Hocevar is an elite young talent and LaJoie is a solid veteran who is in the best situation of his career. Smith's season is off to a rocky start but he should show some flashes too, and then if Caruth's performance in the Truck Series is any indication, he will be moving up the ranks before too long.
In an age where upward mobility is rarely seen in NASCAR, Spire Motorsports has put the racing world on notice. They're here to stay, and odds are they'll only get better.
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