No championship points, no playoff math. Just drivers going after a million-dollar check. That’s what makes the NASCAR All-Star Race different. But Carson Hocevar looks at this year’s format and wonders: if it’s supposed to be a high-stakes exhibition event, why does the race still feel so controlled? He wants it to feel harder, messier, and ultimately, more fun to watch.
Hocevar does not have an issue with Dover Motor Speedway, but with what NASCAR took away from this weekend. NASCAR removed the All-Star Open, which previously served as a last-chance qualifier for drivers. Now, all 36 entered cars will start together in the first two segments at Dover, before the field gets cut to 26 drivers for the final 200-lap sprint.
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The first admission that Hocevar made was about missing the Open this year. “I was excited to watch it and not to be in it,” he said. “I’ve been in it [for] the last two years.”
For some drivers and teams, this race used to feel like their season depended on it. Now that NASCAR has replaced it with a system that places more importance on the average finish across the two segments, it does not seem as interesting anymore.
The new format itself is quite complicated. Qualifying features three-lap runs with heat grooves, followed by a 75-lap opening segment. Segment 2 then flips the top 26 finishers from Segment 1 before the field is trimmed for the final stage. Per Hocevar, that makes the race easier to understand but harder to run. As a solution, he proposed an Australian pursuit-style format where the fastest qualifier starts last, and the last-place car gets eliminated every few laps. Drivers who get passed could also face elimination or a drive-through penalty.
“You have the whole field,” Hocevar explained. “And if you get passed, you’re done.”
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“We did that at Kalamazoo Speedway, and it was maybe one of the most fun races I’ve watched. Or they had to do like a drive-through and get to come back out, and they’re well behind and everything,” he added. “And I think that would be really interesting. I mean, it’d probably make it more complicated for the fans, which we obviously don’t want to do, but I think it would be very interesting.”
The format is also used in USAC racing through the BC39 “Stoops Pursuit” at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where the last-place car gets eliminated every lap until only two remain. Hocevar loves this format because drivers do not have the option to save tires or sit on strategy calls. Every lap becomes super important, which is why he also proposed a schedule change.
“Um, Bowman Gray would be really fun. I think that’d be super cool for the All-Star Race. It’d be a little warmer too in the Clash, but that’d be my vote of places that don’t have a points race right now,” he said in the same interview.
That quarter-mile stadium oval already hosts NASCAR’s preseason Clash. It is tight, rough, and almost impossible to race cleanly on. Hocevar believes that kind of track naturally creates the aggression that a fan expects from an All-Star event.
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Bowman Gray does not even have a normal pit road, either. Drivers have to enter and exit through narrow gates in Turns 1 and 4. A drive-through penalty there could be multiple laps because the car must wait for a safe opening before rejoining the traffic. A mistake there would actually feel consequential.
Carson Hocevar’s idea arrives in a season full of changes
The race calendar has already seen several changes in 2026. Championship Weekend moved back to Homestead-Miami Speedway from Phoenix, while the old 10-race Chase format returned in place of the elimination playoff system. The Chicago Street Race was replaced by a new San Diego event at Naval Base Coronado, Chicagoland Speedway returned for the first time since 2019, and Watkins Glen shifted from late summer to May. Even the Clash moved back to Bowman Gray Stadium.
And of course, the All-Star Race shifted from North Wilkesboro to Dover Motor Speedway. That is why Hocevar’s suggestion does not seem as unrealistic as it might have been a few years ago, especially with NASCAR already showing a willingness to experiment and make major changes.
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2026, on its own, has been an unpredictable season.
Tyler Reddick opened the year by winning three straight races at Daytona, Atlanta, and COTA before Ryan Blaney snapped the streak at Phoenix. Chase Elliott then won at Martinsville, taking the victory away from Denny Hamlin despite Hamlin leading 292 laps. Hocevar himself later claimed his first Cup Series win at Talladega by surviving the superspeedway chaos.
A huge 26-car wreck broke out on Lap 115 after Ross Chastain got into Bubba Wallace, triggering a chain-reaction crash that took out more than half the field and brought out a red flag. There were a total of 52 lead changes before Hocevar beat Chris Buescher in a chaotic sprint to the finish.
Even the Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium, where Hocevar would have loved to see the All-Star Race, was a bumper-heavy event. Ryan Preece won that exhibition after a night filled with contact and tempers, with a record-breaking 17 cautions called throughout the race.
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That is exactly the type of energy Hocevar thinks the All-Star Race should lean into instead of running away from.
His proposal may not come together exactly as he described, since it would involve a lot of logistical challenges for NASCAR management. However, there is a larger point to it. If NASCAR is willing to rebuild its schedule, overhaul the playoffs, and move crown-jewel events around the country, then changing the All-Star Race is not impossible.
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