NASCAR CUP SERIES: COCA-COLA 600

May 24, 2026

Jeff Dickerson

Press Conference

An Interview with:

THE MODERATOR: We're now joined by the winning owner of tonight's race, Jeff Dickerson of Spire Motorsports. Jeff, we just heard Ryan talk about the meaning behind this win, being his first as a Cup crew chief, as well as Daniel's first win with the organization. Can you give some quick words in terms of what both those sentiments mean to the broader team?

JEFF DICKERSON: Ryan hit it right there when he said it's been 215 races as a crew chief. It did. We've had our chances -- not as many as we've had this year. We've been pretty good. We've had our chances to win some races, and we just figured out a way to fumble them or stuff it in the fence or just do something.

I'm really happy for Sparky because, man, he works his ass off. He never gives up. Man, he spends every lap trying to make that car better, always thinking. Him and Johnny have some really good chemistry on that 7 box. Look, I'm just super happy.

Obviously validating. Daniel gets a win. Look, it's not lost on me that was a shortened race by a few laps, but Daniel has had speed all year. That 7 team has had speed about everywhere we've gone. Just heard they're 10th in points. Man, that 7 team is no fluke. He scored them on the last two restarts too. Daniel did well. He launched crazy good.

I just want to thank also Kyle for the shove, and here we are.

Q. You win today. Obviously this weekend has been about Kyle Busch and the celebration. What does that feel like to win for someone that, obviously, you're close to?

JEFF DICKERSON: It's also kind of strange, right? When the rain first started falling, you just find yourself thinking, you're just like, man, you know you're going to get some text from him like you lucky asshole.

Not only is Kyle in the fabric of our place going all the way back to the MMI days, but certainly we're in that shop, a lot of his former employees came along. I hope it's rewarding for them too. It's been a tough couple days there. It's still kind of hard to believe.

I was for sure he was going to walk out of that place. I'm still just -- I can't believe it. It means a lot.

Q. You talk about being an upstart and you guys are still kind of building on this, you guys have as many wins now as Hendrick Motorsports this year.

JEFF DICKERSON: I'm not going to say that to the boss. (Laughter).

I mean, he was super happy for us too.

Q. Jeff, on the Kyle Busch topic, what is his through line at Spire Motorsports? Obviously you guys are based out of what was Kyle Busch Motorsports. What's the through line from your perspective and the legacy that Kyle left?

JEFF DICKERSON: I know a lot of the racing DNA, I can trace back to that 5 team back in the day and with Kyle. Kyle had just a maniacal desire to win and just set a high bar and just did not give a shit. You had to meet it. Just had like this crazy curiosity.

I remember being here -- I remember spotting him here, and we were following -- I think we were following Harvick. This is like on the 5 team. I just remember him like driving around telling Alan exactly where the track bar was on the 29, how much rake was in it, and you're just like, you know, only going like 200 miles an hour into the corner, but man, he was just so gifted.

Really it's that attention to detail and that never being satisfied, and I know I can kind of be a dick at the racetrack sometimes, and it's just like that -- man, he just strived for perfection and you just had to meet it, and it just made everybody better. He was just so maniacal about it.

I think that's kind of that through line for all of us that worked with him along the way. I don't think that story is just original to me. I think anybody that ever worked with him on a race team or in business, because he just wants to know every detail and he wants to tell you how you're screwing it up and doing it wrong, and he just wants to know.

Yeah, I think the thing that carries on in our place and certainly some of these other teams here too is really just that high bar and you had to meet it.

Q. On the note of matching Hendrick this year in wins and referring to Mr. H as the boss and Ryan called you guys still a small team -- all of that, throwing it into a blender, are you guys a small team? Are you a big team? Where are you guys at on the NASCAR hierarchy right now?

JEFF DICKERSON: I don't know. I think I said this to you at Talladega. I just don't think we've hit our ceiling. I don't think we're hitting on all cylinders. I think we've still got a long ways to go to -- I mean, you saw it. I thought, whether it was 1 through 5 or 1 through 6, I felt like most of the race was every Toyota in the field. So I don't think we're there yet.

Daniel drove his ass off on those restarts. Ryan gave a great call. We knew that 7 was fast. But we're not -- I think we're somewhere in the middle. I mean, we got 175 people that wake up every day and try to win these races.

Obviously the help from Dan and Cassidy Towriss and Mark Walter doesn't hurt. They also set a really high bar. Everything from them is just what do you guys need to win?

I'm glad we could salvage the day for the DWG guys. It wasn't great in Indy. It wasn't great in Montreal. I was glad we could get them a trophy.

Man, it just feels like we've got a long ways to go still. It feels like we can still stretch out. I'm glad we're getting trophies. Our goal was to put two in the playoffs and get three wins this year. Those guys 9th and 10th in points. Still a long ways to go. I don't want to fumble it. But, man, it would be good to meet those goals.

Q. Back to the comment on KBM. You guys ran the KBM branding on the cars and the trucks and obviously taking the trophy back to the shop. Whether it's short term or long term, have you guys started to kind of preliminarily look through or work through ways to honor Kyle and KBM as some sort of like long-term strategy?

JEFF DICKERSON: I mean, I haven't talked about it. I think Bill and those guys have, but I haven't talked about it. I think you honor the -- in a weird way, man, it's like we were honoring it before he passed. It was -- again, it's just like that truck team, it's just like, man, we want to win every race.

I think the legacy or just kind of pay tribute to the legacy is just win some races, keep winning races, and we'll figure out the rest this week.

Q. Back on October 22nd, you told me signing Daniel was a redemption story. It was a chance to prove that the No. 7 was better and it was a chance for Daniel to prove that last year was an outlier. The way you guys have won this year plus winning a crown jewel, is the redemption story complete, or where are we at with that?

JEFF DICKERSON: That's a good question. I mean, this is a big moment. This is a crown jewel race. I never dreamed we'd -- I'd love to tell you we thought we had them right where we wanted them when we were running 30-something or whatever and he was chasing a vibration, it felt like, the first half of this race.

It feels good. It feels good to win. It feels good to -- I'm happy for Daniel. He's had a chip on his shoulder, but man, he's really fit in with us. He's been so good just being like the glue. He's right in the middle. Got Carson way over here and McDowell way over here, and he does a really good job just uplifting everybody, just asking the right questions. He also has a really big curiosity on everything.

How about the redemption story will be complete when we make the playoffs with that team?

Q. I understand that you were in Indy this morning. Is that correct?

JEFF DICKERSON: No, we didn't go because the weather and all that. We've gone a couple times, yeah, this week.

Q. I know that Kyle had -- he wanted to do that race. That was always something that he planned on doing. Did you guys ever have a conversation about that?

JEFF DICKERSON: Yeah, he -- a couple of ways, right? I think he was working on a deal with McLaren. So we talked about it through that. Look, I mean, he was in the building. He knew our partners had an INDYCAR team, and we talked about it at least every winter.

He was -- I think you guys know. He was super close, I think it was two years ago, to really putting something together. It just kind of fell apart at the last moment. Yeah, of course. We talked about anything, everything.

Q. Jeff, two for you. First to follow up on something that Ryan said earlier when he was in here. He talked about the very first 600 of the Next Gen era where you guys tore up a whole bunch of stuff and everybody was sleeping in the shop. To go from that moment to this one, how gratifying is this moment given three, four years ago, where you guys were?

JEFF DICKERSON: Yeah, we crashed a bunch of cars. Probably rung Corey's bell a couple times. We were lucky our shop was right over here, right off the back stretch.

Yeah, I mean, you guys see it. You guys have watched us go through the struggles and all that. It's super satisfying because Ryan, there's a lot of guys in that shop that was here when we were over at the old Kulwicki building. It's always I was really happy for them.

Q. You've made it a point over the last couple of months that you guys are building in all aspects of Motorsports. Why has the ascent mission and what you're doing, particularly in grassroots with sprint cars and with the short track stuff right now, been so important and so much of a passion project for you?

JEFF DICKERSON: Look, again, I don't think that story is original for me and our team or even in this garage. I mean, we all started somewhere. You know, like the dirt track stuff is also in the fabric of our building. We're a part of the renaissance of Knoxville Raceway. To watch that event and the Nationals be back, that's another crown jewel that I know all the Spire guys were all really happy for that.

The other part is like what High Limit did with their own kind of charter system. We saw that as an opportunity. We got lucky that Jason Myers and those guys wanted to get off the road, and we put a bid in for it. We had it done pretty quick. Just like this, a lot of people thought we were stupid. So we'll take our chances.

Between that and then you got a guy like Carson who wants to race. So running that dirt late model program and getting him out there. You've got to keep guys like that busy. They want to race. Look, you guys have seen him. You know the fan base has just really just kind of like wrapped their arms around him and support him. Some of those guys can't make it all the way to the Cup races, so we try to go meet them where they're at.

I think that's good for Carson. It's good for Spire, and I think it's good for NASCAR.

Q. You mentioned that you were at the old Kulwicki building when Spire Motorsports first started. How special is it for you to get the No. 7 back in Victory Lane? And it's been nearly 30 years since the 7 won a race, since Geoff Bodine's win at Watkins Glen in 1996.

JEFF DICKERSON: The 7, it's our baby. It's our first -- I thought it was like our first real like "we're really trying" effort. We ran the 77 there over at Jay's for a while. When we put that 7 on the racetrack, it was like, man, we're really doing it.

I wish I could say that the 7 number is my lucky number or anything like that, but I think about Tommy Baldwin, I remember when we made the call over there and asked Tommy if we could have the number. You guys know Tommy. He was just like, yeah, just don't suck. So Tommy, we did it.

Yeah, I didn't know that. Obviously that's a big name with Geoff and certainly with Alan before that. I hope it's not the first one -- or not the last one for the year.

Q. Coming into this season, Spire Motorsports was not yet a consistently winning team, and Daniel Suárez, while he had one before, was not necessarily looked at as a lock to win in any given season necessarily. So once this pairing came to be, how confident were you that Daniel and the No. 7 team were going to win in 2026?

JEFF DICKERSON: Look, I was confident that our organization was going to win this year. Certainly when we were talking to Daniel -- look, you guys saw. We had plenty of opportunities to win last year. We were fast at several places. I think that's what Daniel saw was you could see the potential, and we knew in our four walls that we had the potential to win races.

Look, today makes it look like we knew what we were doing, but it wasn't too hard of a sell for Daniel just because he -- I think all the guys in that garage saw how fast we were, and if we could just put races together, we would have nights like tonight.

That's really what's cool about a win like tonight is our Achilles heel last year was execution. We just didn't execute. Today when it mattered, Sparky made the right call and Daniel drove his ass off. That's what it looks like when you execute.

I think I told you guys at Talladega, if we can just keep doing that and execute, we will win races consistently.