FORT WORTH, Texas – Carson Hocevar would not let a Stage 2 spin define his day in the Lonestar State.
The No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet Camaro clawed its way back through the field, and at the time of the final caution to declare the race official, NASCAR officials credited Hocevar with a 10th place finish at Texas Motor Speedway for his first career top 10 in his 18th start in the NASCAR Cup Series.
“Yeah, we had solid top-15 speed, just got spun there and after that, the car just wasn’t 100% the same,” said Hocevar explaining his mid-race spin. It was super tight and obviously with dirty air, that just compounds, but it would put ourselves in the right spot. The yellow flew our way at just the right time in a long time. Sometimes you’d rather be lucky than good, but we still had to have a good race car to race with once we got a little bit cleaner air.
“Didn’t lose anything and was able to run 10th.”
The race unfolded across the final stage in Hocevar’s favor to help him gain valuable track position. With 16 cautions across the entire event, the Michigan rookie found prime opportunity to make the most of his day in the Autotrader Echo Park Automotive 400.
“The chaos and the restarts, I was in the hornets’ nest a little bit,” Hocevar chuckled, who now leads the Sunoco Rookie of the Year standings with 152 points over Josh Berry (130 points), Kaz Grala (92 points) and Zane Smith (72 points). “Just wanted to make sure we were on the right end and luckily, we were and got a spot or two. We restarted 12th and ended up 10th. So excited about that.”
Hocevar claims the point lead in the rookie standings, taking it to next weekend’s test at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway for the GEICO 500 (3 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Hocevar finished 35th last fall when driving for Legacy Motor Club in a late race eight-car crash.