Somewhere near Fort Worth, Texas, people in a Chili’s restaurant had an unforgettable Friday night.
Because Carson Hocevar, fresh off scoring his first NASCAR Cup Series win last weekend at Talladega, apparently decided the only logical way to celebrate another victory was to threaten the structural integrity of a chain restaurant for the second straight week.
And honestly, after what unfolded Friday night at Texas Motor Speedway, the man had earned himself unlimited chips and salsa.
The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race ended the way Texas races often do: with smoke, confusion, bent sheet metal and several drivers wondering how on earth they ended up facing the wrong direction. But when the dust settled after two late red flags and an overtime restart, it was Hocevar standing on the frontstretch again, having muscled his way past rookie Gio Ruggiero on the outside through Turns 3 and 4 to grab the lead coming to the white flag.
Five days. Two national series wins. Same sponsor. Same driver behaving like a caffeinated tornado let loose in the garage.
The victory marked Hocevar’s sixth career Truck Series win and his second triumph in less than a week after finally breaking through in the Cup Series at Talladega Superspeedway. And unlike Talladega, where survival is mostly determined by luck and whether the accordion effect decides to ruin your afternoon, this one came because Hocevar simply had the fastest truck when it mattered most.
He led 76 of the race’s 172 laps and spent much of the night looking like a man who had found the cheat code to Texas Motor Speedway. After the Talladega win he waited until he got home to Charlotte before staging a SWAT style raid on a Chili’s. He’s racing in the Cup series Sunday which means he’s sort of stuck in the area this week.
“It’s unbelievable,” Hocevar said afterward. “This means a lot. I can’t leave but we got to go burn down a Chili’s somewhere. What a fun race.”
Which is exactly the sort of sentence that makes NASCAR sponsors smile nervously while Chili’s corporate quietly checks its insurance policy.
The final restart was pure Texas chaos. Ruggiero had taken the lead with two laps remaining in regulation and looked poised to pull off a breakthrough victory of his own before Jake Garcia, Justin Haley, Conner Jones and Tanner Gray piled into a vicious crash on Lap 165 that triggered the second red flag in the closing laps.
When the field returned for overtime, it became every driver for themselves.
Hocevar launched forward on the outside while Ruggiero suddenly found himself trapped three-wide in the middle lane, which at Texas is roughly equivalent to standing in the middle of Interstate 35 wearing a blindfold. The rookie somehow saved the truck from spinning completely but slid backward through the field to a heartbreaking 14th-place finish.
Up front, Hocevar escaped.
And just to make things slightly more awkward for one of NASCAR’s all-time greats, he beat his own teammate to do it.
Spire Motorsports finished first and second with Hocevar leading home Kyle Busch, who spent the evening recovering from early damage after slapping the wall exiting Turn 4 on Lap 13. The contact flattened Busch’s right-front tire and dropped the series’ all-time winningest driver off the lead lap before he clawed back into contention thanks in part to a timely free pass caution in Stage 2.
By the end of the night, Busch was staring at the rear bumper of the younger driver everyone suddenly can’t stop talking about.
“It’s finally good to end his Texas streak,” Hocevar joked.
Then came the sort of answer that explains exactly why people either love Carson Hocevar or want to throw a folding chair at him.
Asked what made the difference Friday night, Hocevar smiled.
“I mean the cocky answer would be what’s in the seat, for sure.”
Of course it would.
But buried underneath the swagger was the reality that Hocevar and Spire Motorsports have suddenly become one of the hottest combinations anywhere in NASCAR. The Truck Series effort has struggled for consistency at times this season, yet on Friday night it looked untouchable when the pressure mounted.
“These guys do a really good job,” Hocevar added. “It’s been a struggle on the Truck side, but so thankful to get it done here.”
Behind the Spire duo, Kaden Honeycutt finished third followed by Brandon Jones and Ben Rhodes in the top five. Layne Riggs, Daniel Hemric, Christian Eckes, Ty Majeski and Chandler Smith rounded out the top 10.
RACE RESULTS
Greg was a writer for DriveTribe supporting Amazon's The Grand Tour and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, and a Masters degree in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek and a regular contributor to Forbes.