NASCAR Cup Texas starting lineup: Spire sweeps front…

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."

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

cla	#	driver	manufacturer	laps	time	gap	mph
1	77	Carson Hocevar	Chevrolet	1	28.222		191.340
2	7	Daniel Suarez	Chevrolet	1	28.225	0.003	191.320
3	17	Chris Buescher	Ford	1	28.275	0.053	190.981
4	19	Chase Briscoe	Toyota	1	28.304	0.082	190.786
5	11	Denny Hamlin	Toyota	1	28.304	0.082	190.786
6	8	Kyle Busch	Chevrolet	1	28.330	0.108	190.611
7	20	Christopher Bell	Toyota	1	28.353	0.131	190.456
8	45	Tyler Reddick	Toyota	1	28.359	0.137	190.416
9	48	Alex Bowman	Chevrolet	1	28.364	0.142	190.382
10	54	Ty Gibbs	Toyota	1	28.396	0.174	190.168
11	5	Kyle Larson	Chevrolet	1	28.411	0.189	190.067
12	88	Connor Zilisch	Chevrolet	1	28.430	0.208	189.940
13	2	Austin Cindric	Ford	1	28.442	0.220	189.860
14	9	Chase Elliott	Chevrolet	1	28.454	0.232	189.780
15	24	William Byron	Chevrolet	1	28.467	0.245	189.693
16	1	Ross Chastain	Chevrolet	1	28.507	0.285	189.427
17	67	Corey Heim	Toyota	1	28.520	0.298	189.341
18	35	Riley Herbst	Toyota	1	28.537	0.315	189.228
19	71	Michael McDowell	Chevrolet	1	28.548	0.326	189.155
20	60	Ryan Preece	Ford	1	28.552	0.330	189.129
21	43	Erik Jones	Toyota	1	28.579	0.357	188.950
22	47	Ricky Stenhouse Jr	Chevrolet	1	28.606	0.384	188.772
23	22	Joey Logano	Ford	1	28.618	0.396	188.692
24	21	Josh Berry	Ford	1	28.619	0.397	188.686
25	6	Brad Keselowski	Ford	1	28.656	0.434	188.442
26	16	AJ Allmendinger	Chevrolet	1	28.662	0.440	188.403
27	41	Cole Custer	Chevrolet	1	28.676	0.454	188.311
28	4	Noah Gragson	Ford	1	28.694	0.472	188.193
29	51	Cody Ware	Chevrolet	1	28.726	0.504	187.983
30	97	Shane van Gisbergen	Chevrolet	1	28.738	0.516	187.905
31	12	Ryan Blaney	Ford	1	28.754	0.532	187.800
32	34	Todd Gilliland	Ford	1	28.772	0.550	187.682
33	42	John Hunter Nemechek	Toyota	1	28.774	0.552	187.669
34	38	Zane Smith	Ford	1	28.833	0.611	187.285
35	10	Ty Dillon	Chevrolet	1	29.134	0.912	185.350
36	66	Chad Finchum	Ford	1	30.613	2.391	176.396
37	23	Bubba Wallace	Toyota	0
38	3	Austin Dillon	Chevrolet	0