BRISTOL, Tenn. — Carson Hocevar was a top-five driver all day Sunday.
His No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet was a staple near the top of the Bristol Motor Speedway leaderboard, charging closer to the front of the field after qualifying ninth. But the sophomore phenom left the “Last Great Colosseum” without anything significant to show for it.
MORE: Race results | At-track photos: Bristol
Hocevar left Thunder Valley with an 11th-place finish, one lap down in the Food City 500. On most days, Hocevar likely would have been happy with the result, especially considering it marks his best finish since placing runner-up at Atlanta Motor Speedway in February. The races since then have been filled with poor results thanks to unfortunate circumstances despite good speed. Sunday, however, wasn’t most days.
Running third when the day’s final green-flag pit cycle began, Hocevar had a disastrous stop at Lap 392. His car fell off the jack while the team worked to change the left-side tires, forcing jackman Cody French to snag a spare jack from behind the wall and work to lift the car up without a left-rear tire yet attached.
Hocevar ultimately rallied for a decent result and ended the race with a 6.78 average running position. He was the race’s top defender, per NASCAR Insights, as well as the day’s second-best passer. But a top-five effort with a car that ranked third in speed — behind only Kyle Larson and Denny Hamlin — went for naught.
“It’s the good old-fashioned line, right? Do you cry or laugh?” Hocevar said. “It’s obviously really frustrating. But I know no one on pit road, no one at the shop, nobody anywhere thought today, like, ‘man, let’s go screw ourselves and break the jack,’ right? So it’s just part of it. Unfortunate, obviously, for how fast our car was. We were probably gonna run third there, which is a really, really good day for us, and it just sucks to lose out on a top 10, top five right there on something freak again.”
The 22-year-old expressed his frustration over the team radio in the moments immediately after the stop before locking back in mentally to perform the task at hand, a feat not easily achieved inside the Bristol bullring. He was lapped by leaders Larson and Hamlin but maintained pace with Hamlin’s No. 11 Toyota after the long stop.
“For me, it was really helpful that, motivation-wise, the 5 were 11 were right there,” Hocevar said. “I mean, I did everything I could to work past the 11 and try to get myself in a free-pass spot or get in the top 10. Just didn’t work out right there. But still, we held onto them. Just wish we were on the lead lap, obviously.”
Hocevar was also racing with a heavy heart Sunday after losing his grandmother Margaret Hocevar, who passed Monday at age 86. Donning her name atop the car, Hocevar found himself in “pretty good company” racing two of the sport’s best in Larson and Hamlin for the victory Sunday.
“It’s obviously been tough, but you’re still a race-car driver. You go race,” Hocevar said. “And yeah, I felt like there’s a little bit more pressure on me that I put on myself today. I did everything I felt like I could do, so I knew she would be proud, and my family would be proud. And hopefully everybody, all the men and women back at Spire, they should be proud of themselves too for bringing a really, really fast race car.”
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