Love him, or hate him, you can’t deny that Carson Hocevar is flat-out the best driver in the NASCAR Cup Series from an entertainment standpoint. And Sunday afternoon in the Jack Link’s 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, the 23-year-old Spire Motorsports driver proved he can get it done in America’s top form of motorsport.
In a wild three-lap shootout to Sunday’s race, Hocevar was locked in a side-by-side battle with Chris Buescher. Each driver had a fierce line of cars shoving them for the final three laps, trying to give their lane the advantage in the closing laps.
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As the two lanes came off of the final turn of the race, it looked like it was a dead-heat. But then, Buescher received a hard shot from behind, which landed in a way that got his No. 17 Ford Mustang a little wiggly. This disturbed the energy of the top lane, and allowed Hocevar to surge to the finish line, where he collected the milestone victory.
Hocevar’s first career win, which came in his 91st start, was followed by one of the most unique victory celebrations that we’ve ever seen.
At 6’4″, Hocevar was able to reach the pedals of his No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet, while he sat on the door of the car. This allowed him to drive his car, while he also hung out of the machine and waved to the crowd on hand at Talladega Superspeedway.
Hocevar concluded the celebration by slamming into the outside wall, nose first, and then he performed a burnout while nosed into the outside wall, while also still sitting on the door of his race car.
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The Michigan native, who has come close to capturing his first Cup Series win numerous times over the last few years, admitted that he had been thinking about that celebration idea for some time.
“Yeah, I feel like every time I’ve ever seen the crowd, really got to hear ’em, I’ve had this thought up for a while,” Hocevar explained in his post-race interview on FOX. “I’ve messed it up every which way to not be able to do it. I don’t care if it took 20 minutes or whatever; I was going to figure out how to do it. It took me a while.”
Hocevar, who has gained his fair share of fans as well as critics throughout his young NASCAR Cup Series career, was simply thankful for the opportunity to win in NASCAR’s top series.
“I’m so thankful. This is the biggest dream I’ve ever thought of,” Hocevar explained. “Thank you, everybody. I couldn’t have done it in any better way.”
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Buescher was able to hang on for a runner-up finish, and crossed the finish line 0.114 seconds behind Hocevar.
Alex Bowman, who was making his second start following a four-race absence for vertigo symptoms that he experienced at Circuit of the Americas, was able to exit Talladega with a solid third-place finish. Bowman joked that he was simply happy to finish the race, as he’s never had the best luck at the 2.66-mile superspeedway.
“Yeah, I mean, honestly, to be blunt, it just feels good to get out of here without crashing,” Bowman quipped. “I’m getting old, don’t have much of that left in me. Glad to get out of here clean.”
Bowman would be followed across the line by Chase Elliott, his Hendrick Motorsports teammate, and Zane Smith, who would collect a hard-fought fifth-place finish.
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The highlight of the race was a field-clearing 36-car melee on Lap 115 of the event, which was triggered by a bump draft gone wrong from Ross Chastain onto Bubba Wallace, who was leading the race at the time of the incident.
The contact caused Wallace to skid into the outside wall, and from there, the track turned into a parking lot, and only four cars were able to snake through without some sort of damage.
In the end, Wallace, and five other drivers saw their days end due to damage sustained in the crash.
This article was originally published on www.si.com/onsi/racing-america as Hocevar Electrifies Talladega Crowd With First Career NASCAR Cup Win.
Read the full article here
