Spire Motorsports speedy to start the weekend in Phoenix
AVONDALE, Ariz. — Spire Motorsports had a speedy Saturday as two of their drivers were fastest in practice and all of them qualified inside the top-10 for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Phoenix Raceway.
Carson Hocevar and Michael McDowell were fastest of any driver in Cup Series practice and fastest of the Spire cars in qualifying. Hocevar will start third while McDowell and teammate Justin Haley will share row four, starting seventh and eighth respectively.
“I think race trim is really good. Actually, I had a little bobble in qualifying so it felt like I was fortunate to get the lap I did,” McDowell said. “I’m not surprised and I’m not saying that arrogantly but we have great people around us. Carson ran well in the fall race. I’ve had two or three top-10s in the last three starts so I had a good feel of what we needed. I’m proud to see all our cars up front.”
McDowell finished eighth in the spring race last year and ninth in the 2023 season finale at Phoenix Raceway while racing for Front Row Motorsports. In the fall race, now-teammate Carson Hocevar finished 18th after running inside of the top-15 for 250 of the 312 laps run.
McDowell and Hocevar are in playoff spots very early on in the season. They finished 11th and 13th at Circuit of the Americas, a week after pulling off a historic comeback to finish 13th and nearly earned their first win, respectively.
Justin Haley is off to a slower start to the season, finishing a season-high (to date) 16th at COTA, but he ran inside the top-10 near the end of the race and showed speed. In the NASCAR Cup Series at Phoenix, Haley started 13th in the fall and has a best finish of 17th, which came in the spring race in 2022.
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Jonathan Fjeld View All
Jonathan Fjeld is the co-owner of the The Racing Experts, LLC. He has been with TRE since 2010.
A Twin Valley, MN, native, Fjeld became a motorsports fan at just three years old (first race was the 2002 Pennsylvania 500). He worked as a contributor and writer for TRE from 2010-18. Since then, he has stepped up and covered 24 NASCAR race weekends and taken on a larger role with TRE. He became the co-owner and managing editor in 2023 and has guided the site to massive growth in that time.
Fjeld has covered a wide array of stories and moments over the years, including Kevin Harvick's final Cup Series season, the first NASCAR national series disqualification in over 50 years, Shane van Gisbergen's stunning win in Chicago and the first Cup Series race at Road America in 66 years – as well as up-and-coming drivers' stories and stories from inside the sport, like the tech it takes for Hendrick Motorsports to remain a top-tier team.
Currently, he resides in Albuquerque, N.M., where he works for KOB 4, an NBC station. He works as a digital producer and does on-air reports. He loves spending time with friends and family, playing and listening to music, exploring new places, being outdoors, reading books and writing among other activities. You can email him at fjeldjonathan@gmail.com