Carson Hocevar and Jeff Dickerson take Spire to its first major benchmark

The NASCAR community is watching both Carson Hocevar and Spire Motorsports grow up together and that journey reached another benchmark on Sunday at Talladega with their first collective victory.

There is a caveat, of course.

Spire does have one previous Cup Series win, and that was the rain-shortened 2019 summer race at Daytona, but team co-owner Jeff Dickerson barely counts it. That was technically a Premium Motorsports car and their win came only hours after NASCAR waited for it to stop raining.

It never did and the Sanctioning Body was eventually forced to call it in favor of the only driver who didn’t pit right before the decisive caution — Justin Haley in the same Spire No. 77 that just won at Talladega.

“I mean, that was the longest hostage situation in NASCAR history,” Dickerson said with a laugh. “But, I mean, we won that race, right? We don’t want to apologize for it but this one was obviously settled on the racetrack. … With our team, if we can execute for 500 miles, it’s so cliché and so true, we know we can win these races. You guys have watched us shoot ourselves in the foot so many times.

“I mean, we were in Victory Lane (at Daytona but) everything is different about it, right? We had a proper Victory Lane. We had a proper burnout, all these things, right? Everything is different. I mean, we’re obviously a different team now, too. But it’s a real good question, but everything is different.”

It’s a different team now because Spire is no longer racing out of the relatively tiny Alan Kulwicki Racing shop behind Charlotte Motor Speedway. Instead, it’s running out of the former Kyle Busch Motorsports and Rowdy Manufacturing shop and now has the support of private equity powerhouse Group 1001.

Thus, unlike that win in 2019, which felt like the zenith for the Jay Robinson operated team, this is just the beginning of what Dickerson envisioned. The dirt racer turned spotter and agent never wavered in his conviction that he was going to build a championship contending team.

“I can stand in front of this whole group, the sport, and say we did and have done everything we said we were going to do when we first bought that Furniture Row charter,” Dickerson said. “That is just a fact.

“We’re not done. We’re not done. We want to put a couple (of drivers) in the Playoffs this year or hope we do good from here. I think we can take these guys on.”

Enter Hocevar.

The 23-year-old is a well-documented work in progress. He ruffles his competitors. There are always questions about his race craft and on-track ethics. Through it all, Hocevar is frequently the most relatable guy in the garage to race fans.

He’s basically a fan who gets to live out their dreams.

“Jeff and I always joke about that, we’re in the video game,” Hocevar said. “When you’re a kid, you might have the (create a character and car), race it up there … but we’re actually in the video game. We finally did it today, so… This is so dang cool.”

There is no other team owner in the sport that would allow Hocevar to grow up so publicly and so messily as Dickerson. Or in the words of crew chief Luke Lambert, allows Hocevar to be ‘unapologetically himself.’

It’s no so different than seeing Dickerson, who is just a big racing kid at heart, grow up as a team owner too.

“You know Jeff,” Hocevar said with a laugh. “His whole company lets Jeff be Jeff, so he’s got to let me be me. I think that’s the best way to put that. There is a reason that I love him and I love everything. The reason everyone is coming into this building is because of him.

Dan and Cassidy Towriss, everyone, they allow Jeff to run the show and basically get the best cars, people and everything.”

Dickerson has told Hocevar ‘a thousand times’ that he is just going to let his young driver touch the stove burner and let the Pavlovian responses do its thing.

“He says I’ll figure it out eventually,” Hocevar said. “It took 91 races to figure that out.”

So now, Hocevar is suddenly a winner and stands eighth in the championship just short of the halfway point of the regular season.

“Holy shit,” Hocevar said …

Daniel Suarez is currently 14th in the standings too. Is Dickerson ready to chase a championship this soon or is there some mutual development that still needs to take place?

He says ‘without a doubt, yes’ because they haven’t even maximized their potential yet.

“I don’t think it’s hyperbole — I don’t think our organization has hit on all cylinders this year, and I don’t think the 77 has hit on all cylinders this year,” Dickerson said. “When we can finally put it together and if we put it together at the right time, I’ll be more than happy from Labor Day on. We can make noise in this championship.”

Another similarity between Dickerson and Hocevar is that they both have the superpower of believing wholeheartedly that they are champions in the making even when it seems premature.

“He has the most irrational confidence of a driver I’ve ever seen,” Dickerson said. “That somehow has to pay off, right?”

But it’s true of Dickerson too. The 50-year-old has never made business decisions based on the projected odds of success. He does it based on feel and sheer resolve. Hocevar recognizes that of his boss too.

“I mean, you can’t do everything they’re doing and number one, be shocked if it happens, or two, be not confident in it,” Hocevar said.

“When they’re hiring people or convincing sponsors to spend more money, convincing Dan to spend more money or whatever, you have to actually believe it yourself — otherwise, you’re just selling nothing really. If you don’t believe it, nobody else is going to.

David Jensen / Getty Images

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Carson Hocevar and Jeff Dickerson take Spire to its first major benchmark

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