Spire sweeps front row with Hocevar and Suarez

Last weekend, Carson Hocevar earned his first NASCAR Cup Series win at Talladega. A few days later, he led a Spire 1-2 to win Friday’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Texas. And now, he just earned pole position for the Texas Cup race in another Spire 1-2, beating teammate Daniel Suarez by just 0.003s.

This is the first time Spire Motorsports locked out the front row for a Cup Series race in the team’s history. Hocevar also earned pole position for this race one year ago, going back-to-back in Texas qualifying.

After climbing from the car, Hocevar and Suarez embraced as they celebrated another incredible achievement for Spire.

“I really want to get the pole again, being the last car,” said Hocevar. “I didn’t expect to steal it from my teammate, but it’s just the coolest thing … A testament to all the Spire guys. This is a team effort — two cars on the front row right after a win. Hopefully, we can do it at a non-superspeedway now.”

Watch: Carson on top! Hocevar storms to Texas pole

Suarez reacted to the pole loss with a lot more excitement than a P2 starter normally would, praising the team: “Listen, I really want to give a lot of credit to everybody at Spire Motorsports. To lock out the front row like this is unbelievable. Everyone at Spire — every man and woman who works very, very hard for this program. And what about this power, as well? HMS power is amazing. If I was going to get beat by someone, I’m glad it was my teammate.”

Chris Buescher will start third, Denny Hamlin fourth, and Chase Briscoe fifth. Kyle Busch, Christopher Bell, Tyler Reddick, Alex Bowman, and Ty Gibbs filled out the remainder of the top ten.

Connor Zilisch qualified 12th in his best qualifying effort since joining the Cup Series, leading all three Trackhouse cars.

Joey Logano, who won this race last year, qualified back in 23rd, while his Penske teammate Ryan Blaney was even deeper in the field — 31st.

Qualifying recap

Despite a bobble coming to the green flag, Briscoe set the fastest time in the first half of qualifying with a 28.304s lap.

In the second half of qualifying, Suarez was the first to best Briscoe, despite an issue in practice where he lost a tire and had to nurse the car back to the pits. The new benchmark was a 28.225s lap.

Hamlin then matched his JGR teammate, but was unable to bridge the gap to the Spire driver.

Buescher ended up jumping the Gibbs drivers, falling just half-a-tenth shy of Suarez. But it was last week’s winner — Hocevar — who was the final driver on track to get the job done. He barely beat Suarez, running only 0.003s quicker over the course of a flying lap to secure pole position.

Bubba Wallace, who crashed in practice, and Austin Dillon, who lost an engine early in the same session, did not take part in qualifying. They will both start from the rear of the field.

NASCAR Cup Texas Starting Lineup