WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. — Road courses in the NASCAR Cup Series can create all sorts of unexpected outcomes. Despite struggles on Saturday, Spire Motorsports walked out of Watkins Glen International with all three of its cars finishing in the top 10 for the first time ever.
Spire Motorsports’ No. 77 team has been one of the weakest teams on the grid in recent years with a revolving door of drivers. Then, Carson Hocevar was hired out of the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series to drive the car full-time for 2024. This year, the performances are much better as Hocevar entered Sunday’s race 22nd in points.
At Watkins Glen, things weren’t all that great entering the race as Hocevar qualified 29th Saturday. The whole team was frustrated.
“It was horrible [Saturday],” Hocevar told Frontstretch after the race. “I was the last car in the 10-lap [average], but we were able to fix it overnight.”
Hocevar got himself to the front by choosing to stay out during the caution at the end of stage two. That allowed him to restart toward the front. Despite the tire wear, he was able to maintain his position and keep pace with Chris Buescher.
When the pit sequence finished, Hocevar ended up in third behind Buescher and Shane van Gisbergen. Then Harrison Burton cut his left rear tire and brought out the yellow with 11 laps to go when part of the casing came off.
Van Gisbergen’s decision to line up behind Buescher in the second row gave Hocevar the outside pole for the restart. Despite a strong restart from the WeatherTech Chevrolet, Hocevar was able to move himself up to second, a position that he held through the next restart.
On the final restart, Hocevar got an excellent jump and actually beat Buescher to the line to lead lap 90. However, van Gisbergen made an excellent move to the inside to take the lead for himself.
Hocevar was pushed back to third and ultimately finished there, a career-best finish. Despite that, he’s overjoyed with his form.
“To be in contention for a win this late in the race in my rookie year with this team speaks magnitudes.” Hocevar continued.
Sunday marked Hocevar’s first top-five and fifth top-10 finish in the NASCAR Cup Series (his previous best was eighth at both Gateway in June and Richmond in August). The finish keeps Hocevar 22nd in points, but he’s now only five behind Todd Gilliland.
For Zane Smith, his rookie season has been a giant struggle. It started well with an 13th-place finish in the Daytona 500, but it was followed by finishes in the 30s in five of the next seven races.
For much of the season, Smith has been the lowest full-time driver in the points. In recent weeks, he has improved. Finishes that were below 30th are now consistently in the top 25.
He scored a career-best second-place finish at Nashville back in June. He also scored a seventh-place finish at Michigan.
Sunday saw Smith use a similar pit strategy to Hocevar to get himself up front. He was able to keep up the good form and hold serve on the final restart to finish fifth.
“I had an incredibly fast car,” Smith told Frontstretch. “Just mad at myself for a mistake I made [early], but the car was good enough to get back up there.”
One person was not happy with Smith finishing fifth … and that person was Michael McDowell. Coming to the finish, Smith executed a bump-and-run on the Benebone Ford to get the position. Afterwards, McDowell confronted Smith on pit road.
As previously announced, Smith will not be back with Spire Motorsports or Trackhouse Racing, so he’s actively job searching. Every little bit helps.
Corey LaJoie started the highest forward of the three Spire teammates in 18th. He then spent a fairly large chunk of the race in the top 10, getting a lot of good press for the team. He was very consistent while keeping pace with the top runners.
He chose a more traditional pit strategy and stayed out until lap 67. That allowed him to lead before making his final stop.
Ultimately, LaJoie finished eighth for his best career finish on a road course. It is his second top 10 finish in three races and boosted him up four places to 28th in points.
The future will likely be much different for Spire Motorsports. Both Smith and LaJoie will not be back with the team after this season.
The team has already announced that McDowell will be moving over to drive the No. 71 in 2025. In addition, Rodney Childers will join the operation once the season ends. Spire still has not filled LaJoie’s seat for next season, but looks to continue its upward swing in the coming years.
Phil Allaway has three primary roles at Frontstretch. He's the manager of the site's FREE e-mail newsletter that publishes Monday-Friday and occasionally on weekends. He keeps TV broadcasters honest with weekly editions of Couch Potato Tuesday and serves as the site's Sports Car racing editor.
Outside of Frontstretch, Phil is the press officer for Lebanon Valley Speedway in West Lebanon, N.Y. He covers all the action on the high-banked dirt track from regular DIRTcar Modified racing to occasional visits from touring series such as the Super DIRTcar Series.
I’m still not convinced that Spire Motorsports is nothing less of a cash
grab since they do not employee a legit qualified driver but rather street
corner rejects instead.
Next week they’ll go back to bringing out cautions.
If they were just in it for the money they would not have spent 40 million on a charter. 3 in top ten is a great accomplishment. . They are only getting better
Once LaJoie is gone, they’ll really improve. Was hoping that they would have kept Zane Smith, though.