Travis Peterson Officially Moving to Spire with Michael McDowell in 2025

The 2025 driver/crew chief roster for the three-car Spire Motorsports NASCAR Cup Series stable is nearly completely filled out. On Tuesday afternoon, Spire announced the acquisition of Travis Peterson as the crew chief for the team's No. 71 Chevrolet Camaro, where he will be paired with Michael McDowell.

Peterson and McDowell have been partnered as driver/crew chief for the last two seasons at Front Row Motorsports, where the duo won a race in 2023, and made the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs. The pairing also snagged their first three pole positions of their respective careers this season to go along with two top-five finishes and six top-10s.

The 33-year-old crew chief considers the chance to join McDowell at Spire Motorsports, "Exciting."

“It is a very exciting opportunity,” said Peterson in a team press release. “Michael (McDowell) and I had the opportunity to meet with Doug (Duchardt) and (Jeff) Dickerson and they really sold us on the vision of where Spire is going and how we could be big role players in building the organization. I think having that skin in the game was important to both of us. The opportunity in front of us has all the potential to be very rewarding. That was a huge part of it. I love the energy right now and the overall culture around Spire Motorsports. They’re investing in people and team ownership is highly engaged. The mindset is ‘We’re going to do what it takes to win and this is what we want to build. Here’s the vision, where we’re going, what we’re going to do to get there, and we want you to be part of it.’ That was the biggest selling point.”

The rapport that Peterson has built with McDowell in their two seasons together has Peterson believing they can both continue to grow together at Spire.

“There are times when you meet people and you are immediately able to naturally communicate on a real level,” said Peterson. “I feel like we were that way from the start. We didn’t have to work at it. Our personalities, the way we openly communicate, and our honest nature helped us click from the start. We have no problem talking about hard stuff or easy stuff. We can be happy together when we win and be sad together when we lose. There is no red tape. We just work. It’s hard to recreate that. Staying together is a huge part in coming to Spire Motorsports for both of us. It’s hard to put a value on a driver/crew chief pairing, but there’s an intangible there. We just knew it has been working, and if we can keep it going, we’re only going to get better over time. That’s what we’re chasing. We want to continue to grow and get better together.”

Peterson is a second-generation NASCAR team member, as his father worked for Joe Gibbs Racing in his younger years. Peterson's first taste of working in the racing industry was as a race engineer intern at JGR in the K&N Pro Series East while still in college.

The graduate of William States Lee College of Engineering at the University of North Carolina worked for JR Motorsports from 2012 to 2014 in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, and was part of Chase Elliott's NASCAR Xfinity Series championship-winning season in 2014. In 2015, Peterson was elevated to Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s No. 88 team for Hendrick Motorsports, where he remained until the end of the 2018 season.

It was during Peterson's time on the No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports team that Spire Motorsports president Doug Duchardt first got to know Peterson.

“It’s exciting to have Travis Peterson join Spire Motorsports,” said Duchardt. “The first time Travis and I worked together was when Greg Ives and Travis came to Hendrick Motorsports to be the crew chief and the engineer for the No. 88 car with Dale (Earnhardt) Jr. I got to spend time with Travis there as a young engineer and it’s exciting to see how he’s grown into a leader and a crew chief. He’s going to add tremendous depth to our crew chief lineup and be a great compliment to Luke (Lambert) and Rodney (Childers). I’m really excited to see what those three can do together.”

The combination of Peterson and McDowell will join the returning Luke Lambert and Carson Hocevar, who will makeup the crew chief and driver of the No. 77 entry again in 2025 as well as Rodney Childers and a to-be-announced driver, who will comprise the lineup for the team's No. 7 Chevrolet.

Corey LaJoie was earmarked to return to the No. 7 entry for the 2025 season when the acquisition of Childers was first announced, but a couple of weeks ago, Spire Motorsports announced that LaJoie would not return to the organization next season.

Photo Credit: Nigel Kinrade, NKP for Ford Performance