After an unfathomably tough weekend at Martinsville, there’s probably going to have to be some kind of ‘managerial intervention’ within the Spire Motorsports camp in advance of the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series campaign.
The week had begun on such a positive note, too, with an announcement on Monday that Rajah Caruth (the team’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series driver) would be moving up to the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, and then, another big news item on Wednesday that Daniel Suarez would drive the No. 7 Chevrolet for the organization in 2026.
After receiving damage from an early-race stackup, Rajah Caruth cut down a right-rear tire while battling hard with Kaden Honeycutt, sending the No. 71 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet into the outside wall. The race-ending accident also ended Caruth’s hopes of advancing to the Championship 4.
It’s at this point that I wish I could say that it got better… but it didn’t.
Daniel Suarez, the future driver of the Spire Motorsports No. 7, had gotten roughed up a couple of times in the first half of the event, to the tune of nothing major. Things continued to get rough for the Monterrey, Mexico-native in the second half of the event, but this time, it involved his future teammate, Carson Hocevar.
At Lap 217, Suarez and Hocevar made contact for the first time in Sunday’s XFINITY 500, which spun the Modo Casino Chevrolet around in Turn 2, and elicited a strong reaction from the Portage, Michigan-native, to the tune of a certain f-word expletive.
A near carbon-copy of the same incident happened nearly 200 laps later, when some kind of problem for Carson Hocevar (which was revealed later as the 22-year-old driver accidentally hitting the killswitch) saw Suarez dart to the inside to avoid the No. 77, only to spin him out in Turn 2… again.
…and just when you thought that things couldn’t possibly get any worse for Carson Hocevar… he got spun A THIRD TIME, and this time, by his current Spire Motorsports teammate, Michael McDowell.
Neither driver was having a stellar run at that point, by any means, but this triggered the final caution of Sunday’s 500-lapper, which left William Byron vulnerable to an attack from Ryan Blaney, and the other desperate must-win drivers behind him.
For the majority of organizations, something like that wouldn’t even crack the top-10 of things they would care about at the end of a NASCAR Cup Series event, but for Spire Motorsports, which has a strong relationship with Hendrick Motorsports, that situation certainly isn’t ideal… and Jeff Gordon, Vice Chairman of HMS, agreed.
“You mean the third time the No. 77 [Hocevar] was in an incident,” Gordon laughed during a post-race press conference. “I was thinking that, yes. More than three, I don’t know. I lost count.”
“I’m just far enough removed. Rudy [Fugle], I can’t imagine what he’s going through, the crew chiefs,” Gordon added. “I know for those of us who have been in these meetings, we’re all thinking, ‘Wow, that Monday morning meeting is going to be a tough one over there at Spire’ because there was a lot of contact, not just with their current drivers, but one of their future ones, too.”
Heading to the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race at Phoenix, the goal for Spire Motorsports, without a doubt, has to be just to keep their drivers from running into each other, and hopefully mend some fences between incoming driver Daniel Suarez, and his future teammates, Carson Hocevar and Michael McDowell — both of whom he’ had a run-in with in the past.
