Spire Motorsports adds two-time Daytona 500 winner to their Kansas lineup 

Spire Motorsports has announced two-time Daytona 500 winner William Byron as their Truck Series driver for the Heart of America 200 at Kansas Speedway. The news comes amid the team's continued partnership with Hendrickcars.com to field their elite Cup Series drivers in the No.07 Chevy Silverado.

Byron previously competed for Spire Motorsports at Martinsville Speedway. On this track, he last bagged a Truck Series win in 2022, which marked the team's inaugural win in the division. Earlier this season, his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Kyle Larson also drove the No.07 Chevy on two separate occasions, at Homestead-Miami and Bristol Motor Speedway.

Larson took home the win at Miami but came in as the runner-up at Bristol. While Byron finished outside the top ten at Martinsville, he's set to redeem himself in the 1.5-mile tri-oval at Kansas. On Tuesday, May 6, Spire Motorsports announced the news via their X handle with the following caption:

"Adding another star to our Kansas lineup. @WilliamByron will be back in the No. 07 @HendrickCars Silverado RST this weekend in Kansas!"

William Byron is an eight-time winner in the Craftsman Truck Series, seven of which came from a single season in 2016, when he was considered a favourite to nab the title. The feat earned him the Rookie of the Year honours. Notably, one of those seven wins came from Kansas Speedway.

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Spire Motorsports' Michael McDowell reflects upon his race-ending wreck at Texas

Spire Motorsports driver Michael McDowell suffered a late-race wreck that saw his hopes of a win fade away at Texas Motor Speedway. On lap 221, McDowell's No.71 team called for a two-tire strategy that ultimately placed him among the frontrunners with Kyle Larson, Joey Logano, and Ryan Blaney.

McDowell secured the lead from Larson during the first of the restarts and kept battling for the top spot in the following laps. He eventually fell behind Blaney to third and vied for a comeback when misery struck. With three laps left, he lost control of his car and crashed into the back straightaway outside the SAFER barrier. Reflecting upon the same, he told Frontstretch:

"Obviously we were on two tires, so we knew it was an uphill battle, but we thought we had a good shot at it. We weren’t the best today, but we were fast enough to put ourselves in position. Got a couple of good restarts, had one that was so-so, average, but then when the No. 22 started to close in, I was right at the limit, doing everything I could.

I haven’t seen a replay, [but] I felt like I drove him as far down as you could without doing something crazy and dumb, and he was still able to get there, unfortunately.” (0:10 onwards)

A win for McDowell would've ended Spire Motorsports' 58-race winless streak; the team's last victory came in 2019 with Justin Haley at Daytona International Speedway. Unfortunately, the No.71 driver has yet to score a top-10 finish from his 11 starts this season.