Is It Time for a Spire Motorsports Breakthrough in Nashville?

After a win in Friday night's NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series event at Nashville Superspeedway by Rajah Caruth, it feels like perhaps the planets are aligning this weekend for a big breakthrough for the Spire Motorsports team in the NASCAR Cup Series Cracker Barrel 400.

Caruth, driving the No. 71 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet Silverado, led a race-high 61 laps and held off two of the dominant forces in the NASCAR Truck Series, Corey Heim and Layne Riggs, in the closing laps. In addition to Caruth, Corey Day also collected a solid top-five finish in the team's No. 7 truck.

But there's more of a reason to feel like this could be Spire Motorsports' weekend in the NASCAR Cup Series event than simply the results of Friday's NASCAR Truck Series event.

In last season's NASCAR Cup Series event at Nashville Superspeedway, Zane Smith captured a runner-up finish driving the team's No. 71 Chevrolet. Now, the best finish of Smith's young NASCAR Cup Series career did come at the end of a chaotic five-Overtime-finish to the race. But in the closing laps of the race, the driver of the No. 71 Spire car truly looked competitive.

Fast forward to this season, and Carson Hocevar is showing race-winning speed during his Sophomore campaign in the NASCAR Cup Series season. The driver of the No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet has led laps in each of the last five races, and last weekend in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, he looked ready to contend for the win until his engine blew up with under 100 laps left in the 400-lap event.

Without a doubt, Hocevar, who won at Nashville Superspeedway in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series in 2023, will be ready to come out swinging this weekend.

“I think we’ll have a good car and hopefully another shot at a win, without the bad luck this time. We’ve reached a point where it doesn’t matter what type of track we go to; we are consistently up front and running some of the fastest lap times," Hocevar explained. "Eventually, everything balances out, and we’ll start having the finishes to match those runs. Nashville is a really fast track, and I think it plays into my driving style, having to keep up with the track changes and making moves when the opening is there. I feel like we’re going to have another really good race.”

Additionally, Michael McDowell, who moved to Spire Motorsports in the offseason after a seven-season stint with Front Row Motorsports, was really, really fast in this race a year ago.

McDowell started from the 14th position and took the race lead on Lap 46. The driver would lead 31 laps, but ultimately, McDowell would suffer a transmission failure in his car, which would knock him out of the event early. McDowell has always loved Nashville Superspeedway, and feels even if the finishes don't quite reflect it, he's always had speed at the facility.

“Nashville is fun. I've been able to race there a bunch over the years with both the ARCA Series and NASCAR Xfinity Series. When I started in Cup, that was the track where we went and tested at a bunch. It's a fun race track, and it’s a challenge to get around," McDowell said in a weekly team release. "The race is like a hybrid of a short track and a big track, but in these cars, it's pretty cool because you're downshifting, upshifting, there are a lot of opportunities. I think that it's one of my better tracks, even though we don't have the Cup results to show for it. Speed-wise, it's been a fun track for us. We just haven't had the finishes, whether we got tied up in wrecks or we had a transmission explode there last year. I haven't had great luck, but felt like we've had good speed.”

Crew Chief Travis Peterson moved with McDowell to Spire Motorsports, so expect the strength they showed prior to the mechanical failure last season to carry over at their new race team.

This race also served as one of Justin Haley's best results while driving for the No. 51 Rick Ware Racing team a season ago. Haley finished 13th in this race last year, driving for the team that currently ranks 36th in the NASCAR Cup Series owner standings.

While Haley hasn't been super impressive in his return to Spire Motorsports, just yet, the driver, who picked up the first, and to date only, win for Spire Motorsports in the NASCAR Cup Series, did collect his lone top-10 finish of the season on an intermediate track. While Homestead-Miami Speedway is quite a bit different than Nashville Superspeedway, there's a chance that Haley records the best finish of his season this weekend.

While it's been a season filled with missed opportunities for the Spire Motorsports team in the NASCAR Cup Series, it feels like things are beginning to shift for the organization, which has been building momentum heading into Sunday's Cracker Barrel 400 at Nashville Superspeedway.

The first on-track activity of the NASCAR Cup Series race weekend at Nashville Superspeedway is set for Saturday afternoon at the 1.333-mile track. NASCAR Cup Series practice will begin at 4:30 PM ET and it will be followed by NASCAR Cup Series qualifying at 5:40 PM ET. Both sessions will be streamable on the Prime Video streaming service.

Click here for the complete details on how to watch this weekend's NASCAR National Series action at Nashville Superspeedway.

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