For the last three months, Spire Motorsports have been the reigning NASCAR Cup Series superspeedway race winners. Barring a miracle, that will change Sunday.
When Spire Motorsports’ Justin Haley was running in 27th place on lap 119 of 160 in the NASCAR Cup Series race at the four-turn, 2.5-mile (4.023-kilometer) high-banked Daytona International Speedway oval in Daytona Beach, Florida back in July, there may have been four or so people in the world who understood the significance of it.
Haley was slated to deliver the sport’s newest full-time chartered team their first lead-lap finish, and he was slated to do so at the track where he still believes to this day he got his first Xfinity Series victory last year.
Leading up to this race, Spire Motorsports’ best ever finish was Jamie McMurray’s 22nd place finish in the season-opening Daytona 500 at the same track. But it was a DNF.
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At no point from this race to the season’s second race at Daytona International Speedway, the 18th of 36 races on the schedule, did the #77 Chevrolet that Haley was driving in 27th place finish fewer than two laps off the lead lap.
Then mayhem happened at the front of the field.
Several cars were collected in the “Big One”, which ultimately ended the on-track competition of the day due to the threat of rain and thunderstorms.
Haley wasn’t one of them, moving him up quite a ways up the order.
Anticipating a restart, several drivers came into the pits. Chip Ganassi Racing’s Kurt Busch, who had just been spun out twice only a few dozen laps earlier, was now the race leader ahead of StarCom Racing’s Landon Cassill in second place and Haley in third.
Their gamble was that the rain would arrive and the rest of the race would be washed out; the first two stages of the three-stage race had been completed, so the race was official.
NASCAR gave the one to go signal, and Busch and Cassill opted to come into the pits, effectively giving up on that gamble.
Veteran crew chief Peter Sospenzo, however, left Haley out on the track, now in the lead for the first time in his career.
But the race did not end up going green due to lightning, and instead went to a red flag condition. After several hours of trying to get the race back underway but continuously being put on hold due to rain and/or lightning, Haley was officially named the winner.
There’s really no doubt, given Haley’s status as a 20-year-old full-time Xfinity Series driver and Spire Motorsports’ status as a first-year backmarker team that had previously been disqualified from races for being “too slow”, that this was the biggest upset in Cup Series history.
From then to now, the team have stood as the reigning superspeedway race winners in the Cup Series.
But barring a miracle, somebody else will take that crown away this Sunday, October 13 in the 1000Bulbs.com 500 at Talladega Superspeedway.
Blake Jones is set to drive the #77 Chevrolet in this 188-lap race around the four-turn, 2.66-mile (4.281-kilometer) high-banked Talladega Superspeedway in Lincoln, Alabama.
Haley, who has made only three Cup Series starts in his career, all this year, made his Cup Series debut in the race at the track that was held back in April. He finished in 32nd place after crashing late. He crashed with six laps remaining in the race and was running two laps off the lead lap at the time.
Since Haley’s stunning victory, in which he led just one lap, 96 days have passed — it will be 98 (14 weeks) on Sunday when the 1000Bulbs.com 500 gets underway.
With all due respect to the 22-year-old Jones, who actually has more experience and better results in the Cup Series than Haley did when he won back in July and is the youngest winner ever of any kind at Talladega Superspeedway from when he won the ARCA race there at the age of 18 back in 2015, it would literally take another miracle to get Spire Motorsports back to victory lane.
So say it — and believe it — while you still can.
Nobody in the Cup Series has won a superspeedway race more recently than Spire Motorsports and Justin Haley.
Because in just two days, that statement, one of unthinkable proportions just 99 days ago, will shed that truth.
But make no mistake about it. Regardless of what happens on Sunday, that victory for Haley and Spire Motorsports won’t be forgotten by anybody anytime soon.
Can Blake Jones pull off a Justin Haley-like upset and won the 1000Bulbs.com 500 at Talladega Superspeedway this Sunday, October 13? This race, the fifth of 10 races on the 2019 NASCAR Cup Series playoff schedule, is set to be broadcast live on NBC beginning at 2:00 p.m. ET.