Never before in Spire Motorsports' NASCAR Cup Series history had the team placed more than one car in the top eight in qualifying. But for Sunday afternoon's Shriners Children's 500 at Phoenix Raceway, the team put all three of their entries there in Saturday's qualifying session.
This session, at what many considered the first "regular" oval of the season after the year kicked off with back-to-back superspeedway races at Daytona International Speedway and Atlanta Motor Speedway, plus a road course race at Circuit of the Americas, seemingly marked a turning of the corner for the still relatively mediocre-at-best program.
Through three races, two of their drivers, Michael McDowell and Carson Hocevar, found themselves inside the prospective playoff picture. McDowell's worst finish of the season was 13th place, best among all 36 full-time drivers, and Hocevar had finished in a career-high second at Atlanta.
So those two drivers, along with Justin Haley, putting all three Spire cars in the top eight at a non-"wild card" track was massive.
But the Hendrick Motorsports-aligned Chevrolet outfit had arguably their worst day in team history once the 312-lap race around the four-turn, 1.022-mile (1.645-kilometer) Avondale, Arizona oval started, and the downfall actually began shortly before the green flag flew.
McDowell was penalized before the race after the team changed his steering rack, so he had to drop from his fourth row starting spot in seventh place to start the race at the tail end of the 37-car field in 37th.
McDowell was able to work his way back up into the top 10 before a flat tire derailed his day, sending him into the turn four wall. And one lap after the ensuing restart, both Hocevar and Haley were taken out in an eight-car pileup on the back straightaway.
Another flat tire later in the event for McDowell sealed the team's misery, and on a day that started with so much promise after a historic qualifying session, his 27th place finish, 22 laps off the lead lap, was the organization's best.
At least he got the bonus point for running the fastest lap.
McDowell is still above the playoff cut line, but only by 14 points. On the flip side, Hocevar is now 11 points behind, and Haley fell to 33 behind.
Spire Motorsports will be looking to bounce back this weekend in Sunday afternoon's Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. While another strong Saturday would be nice, a stronger race result would be even better. Tune in to Fox Sports 1 at 3:30 p.m. ET on Sunday, March 16 for live coverage. Start a free trial of FuboTV and don't miss it!