At Michigan, the cruel mistress of motorsport proved once again she has a taste for irony Sunday. Two of the day’s fiercest contenders—William Byron and Carson Hocevar—had their eyes on victory, only to be mugged by physics, fuel math, and fate in the final laps.
Let’s start with Byron. The man led a race-high 98 laps. He looked fast, confident, in control—like a pilot who knows his plane inside and out, even if it’s on fire. His No. 24 Chevrolet was glued to the track, handling like a scalpel in Stage 2 and slicing past the competition with a sense of inevitability. But in the end, what it couldn’t slice through was a simple fact: the tank was empty.
Literally.
“We didn’t have enough,” Byron said afterward, still processing the sting. “We were going to run out with a lap and a half to go… We were trying to keep the lead and save fuel down the straights and on exit. But we burned more being up front.”
In other words, Byron was doomed by doing too well for too long.
He coasted to pit road just as the white flag came out, from first to 28th in the blink of an eye. The final insult? He was still the last car on the lead lap. Not wrecked, not beaten. Just dry.
And then there’s Carson Hocevar—Michigan’s favorite son on the day. The 21-year-old rookie was on the cusp of a storybook home-state win. He led 32 laps in his Spire Motorsports Chevy, and when Byron briefly blinked, Hocevar took the lead like a kid grabbing the last slice of pizza at a family reunion. The crowd roared. This was it. Cinderella was driving the pumpkin flat-out.
But as Hocevar said himself, the numbers never lie.
“Yeah, I mean, it was going to be near impossible to save four laps around this place,” he admitted. “We were saving just to keep the pit stop short. We needed a yellow.”
What he got instead was a left-rear tire failure with 19 laps to go. No spin, no wreck, just a slow, aching fade into pit road—one position behind Byron in 29th, and one lap down.
Still, it could’ve been worse. “I’m just really thankful it happened down the backstretch,” Hocevar said. “I’ve never had a flat at these high-speed tracks. I’m glad I got that feeling without it hurting… and especially for how good that car was, I’m glad we didn’t tear it up.”
There are no consolation prizes in NASCAR. Only pain, learning, and the occasional t-shirt. But on Sunday, both Byron and Hocevar reminded us why we watch: because even in the agony of defeat, there’s something magnificent about watching two drivers throw everything they have at the universe—and almost win.
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.
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