Spire Suspends Hocevar for Homestead Finale After Martinsville Brake-Check

Spire Motorsports announced on Tuesday that it has suspended Carson Hocevar for Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race at Homestead-Miami Speedway, the season finale. Justin Haley will drive the No. 77 Chevrolet in his place when the race goes green at 3 p.m. ET on NBC. The team acted two days after Hocevar's controversial incident with Austin Cindric at Martinsville Speedway. According to the team, SMT data showed Hocevar brake-checking in front of Cindric's No. 2 Team Penske Ford multiple times during Sunday's Chase race. The contact crushed the nose of Cindric's car, leaving him with a DNF and a 36th-place finish. The incident had already drawn sharp criticism, with Kevin Harvick branding the brake-checks among the dirtiest tactics he had seen, and Spire's suspension now makes Hocevar pay the heaviest price of all by missing the championship weekend entirely. NASCAR officials have not announced any further disciplinary action against Hocevar, leaving the team's own suspension as the punishment for now. The decision also reshapes the finale field, with Haley stepping into a car that had been in the thick of the playoff fight. Hocevar's absence will be one of the major talking points when the Cup Series returns to Homestead-Miami, which hosts the title decider for the first time since 2019.