Daniel Suárez, crew chief Ryan Sparks and lead engineer Jonathan Branzelle are entering Daytona International Speedway knowing their No. 7 Spire Motorsports team is locked into The Chase for the NASCAR Cup Series Championship before the green flag waves for the regular-season finale.
What a difference a year makes for all parties involved.
The 2026 Coca-Cola 600 winners couldn’t rely on that Charlotte Motor Speedway victory to dictate their postseason entry. Instead, the full body of work over the season’s first 26 races had to be good enough to secure a spot in the 16-driver postseason field. Turns out they only needed 25 to do so instead, clinching a spot before Saturday’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway (7:30 p.m. ET, NBC, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
MORE: Cup Series standings | Daytona schedule
Considering how the 2025 campaign ended for both Suárez and Spire’s No. 7 team, it’s fair to say few people saw this outcome ahead. Suárez ended 29th in points in 2025, his final year driving the No. 99 Chevrolet at Trackhouse Racing. The No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet landed 31st in points after a campaign that began pairing driver Justin Haley with title-winning crew chief Rodney Childers on the pit box lasting just nine races, ending the full season with two top 10s, an average finish of 22.2 and 23 lead-lap finishes after Sparks returned to the pit box for the final 27 races in addition to his role as competition director.
How do two parties, each at their own respective crossroads, match for a run and lock into championship contention so quickly?
“It’s everything about people,” Suárez told NASCAR.com.
Suárez joined Spire Motorsports after his five-year tenure with Trackhouse came to a disheartened end — a period that also produced his first two Cup Series wins.
“I don’t want to only remember the negatives, you know,” Suárez said. “I also want to remember the positives because we also had a lot of positives together. But unfortunately, over the last year, it was just difficult — difficult on performance, difficult on the communication, difficult in the way that things were going in leadership within the team. So things were just not aligning anymore.”
And while Suárez was navigating his journey, so too was Spire Motorsports’ No. 7 program. While Michael McDowell and Carson Hocevar respectively brought their Nos. 71 and 77 teams toward the front of the field, the No. 7 team struggled to find the same results.
“Last year, the team was going through some transitions with personnel change and everything,” Sparks said. “So at the end of the year, when we put the the team in place and knew Daniel was coming on board, we went right to work trying to develop that relationship between myself, Jonathan and Daniel, just to make sure we understood each other — how to communicate effectively throughout the weekend — and really, that was extremely important to us in the offseason to to be able to hit the ground running in Daytona.”
That process happened at an off-site event during the offseason through a company called UHP — Unlock Human Potential — which served as the team’s primary sponsor at Richmond Raceway on Aug. 15.
Branzelle, formerly an engineer on the No. 6 RFK Racing car with then-crew chief Matt McCall, said that time spent was pivotal toward the team’s early-season success.
“That really helped us figure out each other’s personalities with personality tests, see what each person’s strengths are and weaknesses and areas and how to communicate better,” Branzelle said. “So I think that was a big thing for us, especially having Daniel (in his) first year here, getting a head start on that. So when we got to Daytona, it’s like we’d been together for a little bit longer than we actually had been.”
“It saved us a quarter of a season of learning each other,” Suárez added. The proof became evident through results, collecting Spire’s first non-superspeedway victory in addition to three other top-10 finishes in the first 13 races of the season, maintaining a spot inside the top 16 in points for all but one of 25 weeks so far this season.
“Honestly, I believe that it helped the entire organization,” Suárez said of his experience with UHP. “But I believe that it helped the 7 the most because essentially the 7 team was a couple steps behind the 71 and the 77 just because we’re new. Before a year and a half ago, I had never crossed more than three words with (team owner) Jeff Dickerson or (president) Bill Anthony or Ryan Sparks or Matt McCall (now the competition director). Like I have known them, sure. But I have just said ‘hi, how’s it going?’ That’s it.
“So to get to know them and understand how to approach them is something very important. I’m a very direct person. I just tell you [expletive] the way it is, and I like people to be the same way to me. But not everyone is like that. Everyone is a little different, and those are the kind of things that we learned in this program and how to approach people and how to be more efficient with the way that we approach people. So I believe for a team that is just kind of getting started, it was crucial to be able to go through this process of adaptation of understanding each other.”
Suárez and the No. 7 team have given Spire Motorsports a full house of relevant data to contribute to the whole of the team’s success. As the No. 7 team lagged behind its housemates with McDowell and Hocevar at the wheel, its data wasn’t proving as valuable as its counterparts’. Now, the No. 7 team can effectively contribute to the conversation to improve the overall speed of Spire’s Chevrolets, especially as Hocevar and the No. 77 team enter The Chase alongside Suárez’s group.
“Oh, it helps a bunch for sure,” Branzelle said. “The way that we communicate amongst the three teams, as far as the engineers go, I feel like, is as good as I’ve ever had. So when the other ones do well, you’re happy for them to see them do well. Like, when we won the race, all three cars are there helping teardown. The other two engineers helping me go through shock tech. Like, we just have each other’s backs, and it’s kind of nice to see that because I’ve never worked at a place that has that. So it’s definitely a different environment, but it’s a good environment.”
That energy has permeated the shop, too. McDowell is a longtime veteran of the sport, but after seven years at Front Row Motorsports and his first year at Spire in 2025, he was used to being the leader everyone turned to. He doesn’t have to carry that burden at Spire any longer, he said.
“It’s not just ‘oh, they’re running better.’ It’s the continuity at the shop, the chemistry,” McDowell said. “Daniel and I work really well together. We prepare a lot together, studying and going through film and talking about a lot of these things. And for me to have somebody that has good experience is really helpful, right? Because I felt like for so many years I’ve been the guy, right? I’ve been the guy that everybody’s kind of leaning on for experience and ‘hey, what’s going to happen?’ Now I have another guy that’s like, ‘Well, I see it like this.’ And I’m like, ‘Really? OK, cool! Tell me about that!’ Because like I said, he brings a lot to the table.”
McDowell also saw firsthand the toll the struggles took on Sparks, Haley, Branzelle and others throughout 2025.
“For me, you start to question yourself and your abilities,” Branzelle said. “And I’ve been fortunate enough in the past to have some OK seasons where we finished OK in points, made the playoffs. And so you always question in the back of your mind: Am I still good enough? Am I doing something wrong? What do I need to do to get better? And so to have a season like we’ve had this year, it’s just a little reminder of, ‘hey, we can still do this,’ but there’s still more to get.”
What McDowell sees now is a “rejuvenated” version of Sparks with a palpable change both at the shop and at the track. That turnaround impacts the whole team. Part of that credit, McDowell said, is due to Suárez’s level of preparation.
“I think when they first announced that Daniel was coming, it was like everybody was a little down on him because he was having a bad year and he was 30th in points and just got let go, right?” McDowell said. “But we all know in the industry he’s got a lot of fight in him. He’s got a lot of dog in him, right? And so I knew he was going to bring that level of intensity, and he has.”
MORE: McDowell on Suárez’s early impact at Spire
Suárez’s competitive drive has long been evident. But even in the process of clinching a spot in The Chase one week early, Suárez isn’t taking a victory lap to spite anybody.
“The reality is that I have never wanted to prove anyone wrong,” Suárez said. “Maybe that has happened by accident, but I just wanted to prove myself, right, because obviously I never stopped believing in myself. And yeah, I’m just happy the way that things have gone so far. Not satisfied. We want to win more, and we want to be even faster, but definitely we have shown what we can do.”
Suárez added this season has been “like a relief to me,” a reminder not just of how good he is behind the wheel but how well he can lead a team if given the opportunity.
Entering Saturday’s 400-mile regular-season finale as the provisional No. 13 seed in The Chase, what’s left to gain for the No. 7 Spire Motorsports team?
“We got 12 spots to gain,” Sparks said. “I mean, I think a solid goal is for us finishing the championship in the top 10 in the standings, right? I think we’re capable of that. We’ve kind of flirted with that all year. Still a large jump for us just to make the playoffs as a team and actually to put two in as an organization. Not done yet, but we’re getting close, right? I think that’s a testament to what everybody, including Matt (McCall), is building at the shop here, and just kind of working together, so extremely proud of that.
“But it’s not we’re not where we want to be, right? That it’s not like (exhale), [expletive], we did it. You know what I mean? We’ve made the playoffs. Who gives a [expletive]? We want to win more races, and we want to win championships. That is [expletive] hard on Sundays, right? So I think we’ve taken a very nice step. But like I said, there’s a whole lot of [expletive] we’ve got to get done yet.”
