It’s an all-Spire Motorsports front row for Sunday’s Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Carson Hocevar and Daniel Suarez, piloting the No. 7 and No. 77 Chevrolet Camaro entries out of the Spire Motorsports camp, put up strong laps late in Saturday’s single-vehicle qualifying session from Indianapolis Motor Speedway, sweeping the front row for the young organization.
Nicknamed ‘The Hurricane’, Hocevar posted a quick time of 48.232 seconds (186.598mph) around the iconic 2.5-mile rectangle-shaped racetrack, marking the fastest qualifying effort for the NASCAR Cup Series at Indianapolis Motor Speedway since 2017.
“It’s just unbelievable. I just got out of the car, and they were yelling and cheering and everything, I just couldn’t believe it. I appreciate it,” Hocevar said. “I don’t know if they’re cheering just because I beat Denny [Hamlin] or it’s the fact that we’re on the front row, but I’m super pumped. Denny stole one from me at Michigan, so yeah, this is hometown for Jeff [Dickerson] and everyone at Spire and yeah, it’s just fun to use our own notes for the last two years and get these cars better and faster and yeah, just enjoy it, these guys work really hard.”
It’s the third career NASCAR Cup Series pole for Hocevar, and his first not at Texas Motor Speedway. It’s also the second time this season that Spire has swept the front row with this combination of Hocevar and Daniel Suarez.
Tyler Reddick posted the third-fastest time in qualifying on Saturday but was more than a tenth of a second off of polesitter Carson Hocevar. Fellow Toyota Racing USA drivers Ty Gibbs and Denny Hamlin rounded out the top-five from Joe Gibbs Racing.
Michael McDowell was the slowest of the three Spire Motorsports entries around Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Saturday but still managed to qualify a solid sixth – his best oval qualifying result since last Fall at Talladega Superspeedway.
Corey Heim, winner at Naval Base Coronado, qualified an impressive seventh in the fourth entry for 23XI Racing. Heim, a 26-time NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series winner, told TNT Sports after his qualifying run that he didn’t believe it would hold for a top-10, but low and behold, it did.
Alex Bowman will start eighth in his second-to-last Brickyard 400, with his teammate Kyle Larson starting directly behind him in 10th. Sandwiched in between the two Hendrick Motorsports entries is the No. 16 of AJ Allmendinger, who continues to put up fantastic numbers without OEM support.
Ryan Blaney will start 13th in Sunday’s Brickyard 400 and currently has the nod over Front Row Motorsports driver Todd Gilliland in the In-Season Challenge. Gilliland will begin his quest for $1 million on Sunday from 36th.
Other notables starting outside the top-10 for the Brickyard 400 include Chase Briscoe in 11th, Joey Logano in 19th, William Byron in 21st, Christopher Bell in 23rd, Shane Van Gisbergen in 25th, Chase Elliott in 27th, defending Brickyard 400 winner Bubba Wallace in 29th, and Austin Cindric in 35th.
The Brickyard 400 will take place Sunday, July 26 at 2:00 PM ET on TNT Sports.
