Spire Motorsports enters Daytona 500 with expanded expectations

If this is your idea of flipping a property, you should probably stay out of real estate.

It was about 3½ years ago when T.J. Puchyr, co-owner of Spire Motorsports, used a surprise Daytona victory to express his frustration at rumors his group was only in the ownership game to make an easy buck.

They’d purchased a NASCAR team charter the previous year from departing Furniture Row Racing, and were suddenly batting down rumors of a charter flip — with some noticeable irritation, in fact. The timing was unfortunate — Puchyr’s rebuttal was part of a post-victory press conference following Justin Haley’s win in the rain-shortened Coke Zero Sugar 400.

Instead of cashing in by cashing out, Puchyr and partner Jeff Dickerson began building, a process culminating — for now — in massive expansion last fall and through the offseason.

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“It’s just being an entrepreneur. This is what we know,” Puchyr says. “This is the business we’re in. We believe in the sport; we’ve bet everything we own on it.

“This is how we eat. We don’t have a separate business. We have to be disciplined in the process. We don’t have rich relatives or another business to pull from to fund this.”

Spire moved from its former home — the old Alan Kulwicki shop — into the former (and massive) Kyle Busch Motorsports headquarters late last year. The team now employs well over 100 people, fields three Truck Series teams and, after adding another charter, three full-time Cup Series teams with drivers Corey LaJoie, Zane Smith and Carson Hocevar.

On the side, Spire manages the Rev Racing Truck Series team that carried Nick Sanchez to Friday night’s win at Daytona.

Doug Duchardt adds executive know-how to Spire

No new hire or acquisition, Puchyr says, was more important than bringing in veteran team executive Doug Duchardt as team president.

“People can talk about us adding a charter this year. They can talk about us moving into a new building,” Puchyr says. “But the biggest thing we did was get Doug Duchardt. That is the biggest feather in our cap from the offseason.”

Duchardt had spent much of the past two decades in upper-management with Hendrick Motorsports and Chip Ganassi Racing.

“Jeff has known him for 20 years. I’ve known him for 15. He’s been a mentor for us,” Puchyr says. “For him to want to take on a challenge like this, it says something about him, too. He’s not done yet.”

The (inflated) price of doing business in NASCAR

The team’s third Cup charter, purchased from B.J. McLeod’s Live Fast Motorsports, was rumored to cost Spire $40 million. Has the price of poker gone up that much in NASCAR?

The $40 million has to be an exaggeration, right?

“I’d say it’s in a very close neighborhood,” Puchyr confirms.

In his very next breath, Puchyr insists, “I think they’re still undervalued.”

“This platform is a great platform,” he says of NASCAR’s sports-entertainment opportunities. “There is no better market for a sponsor to come in here and do something for their people.”

Spire Motorsports was originally a spinoff of Spire Sports + Entertainment. Puchyr and Dickerson built their racing careers representing drivers and facilitating sponsor/team relations. It was only natural to consider they might be in it to turn a fast profit, and three-plus years removed, Puchyr says, yes, there were some entreaties.

“You gotta listen to every conversation,” he says. “That’s who Jeff and I are and how we got here. We’ve been around this garage for 20 years, managing drivers and doing sponsorship deals.

“That’s been our political capital. Those relationships. Managing those relationships and trusting people to handle it the right way.”

Corey LaJoie now dealing with some expectations

LaJoie enters the Daytona 500 as Spire’s elder statesman among the three-driver lineup. This is his fourth season with Spire, but probably his first with a dose of expectations mixed among the hope.

Especially at Daytona, where he’s posted four of his eight career top 10s.

“The bar has been very low,” he says. “We keep creeping that bar up every year. We know how to put ourselves in position to be in the hunt in these races. I think we’re gonna do an even better job of that this year.”

Like all Cup Series racers, LaJoie filled plenty of trophy cases as a youngster coming through the ranks. NASCAR in general, the Cup Series in particular, is a different animal, however.

“Pressure is different than expectations,” LaJoie says. “You want to win. You want to run good. I’ve been successful and won at everything in my life. Then you get here. Adding trophies to trophy cases has really slowed down the last five years.

“Now, it’s just having more potential to do that. The team has more resources coming in. The pressure is no different but the expectations are what you have to manage. That’s what can bog a team down.”

Puchyr is on that same page.

“That’s the biggest thing, after buying Kyle Busch Motosports, is managing our own expectations,” he says. “When I say that, I don’t necessarily mean Jeff and I. I mean all of the 130 people who work there.”

— Reach Ken Willis at ken.willis@news-jrnl.com

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Spire Motorsports enters Daytona 500, new NASCAR season, with new hope