Carson Hocevar won Saturday’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Kansas Speedway not with style or grace, but with a teeth-bared snarl and a right-front fender bent like a soda can. It was one of those NASCAR moments that reminds you why God invented steel bumpers in the first place.
On the final lap, Layne Riggs—still shiny, still full of hope—decided to send it off into Turn 1 like a man late for dinner and divorce court. Hocevar was already there, guarding the bottom like a guy protecting the last case of Busch Light. They made contact, because of course they did, and bounced off the wall like two drunks trying to hug it out in a bar fight. It was pure Truck Series mayhem—the kind of moment that deserves to be bronzed and put on the hood of a Chevy Silverado.
Behind them, William Byron, NASCAR’s version of an honors student with a race car, nearly inherited the win while they were busy redecorating the wall with Goodyear rubber. But Hocevar, bruised but not broken, wrangled his truck back in line and muscled his way across the finish line ahead of Riggs for his third career win.
Byron settled for third—probably grateful to have survived without so much as a scuff on his paint. Corey Heim, who had a night full of mechanical mischief and NASCAR’s version of bureaucratic red tape, came home fourth. And young Gio Ruggiero rounded out the top five, likely wondering if all Truck races are this bonkers. (Answer: usually.)
Riggs night turned from bad to worse after the metallic dust settled. He was disqualified after post-race inspection found a truck bed cover violation on his No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford, elevating Byron to second place.
Now, this whole thing turned on its head with 37 laps to go, when Frankie Muniz spun down the frontstretch in a moment that was more Malcolm in the Middle than Days of Thunder. Hocevar was on pit road when the caution flew—normally a death sentence in this sport—but somehow luck dealt him a royal flush. He stayed on the lead lap and cycled back to the point like nothing happened. Meanwhile, Riggs, Grant Enfinger, and Kaden Honeycutt—who had already pitted—got shuffled back like old socks and had to take the wave-around.
Of course, this set the field up for a glorious mess. Heim, the two-time Kansas winner who had been in the mix all night, caught a restart violation, which is NASCAR’s way of saying, “We saw that, and we’re not mad, just disappointed.” This came after he’d already lost the lead thanks to a busted pit gun, which might be the most frustrating way to fall down the order outside of being hit by a meteor.
But give the man credit: Heim clawed back into the top five by the end, showing exactly why he’s one of the best in the series when things go sideways—which, in the Truck Series, is basically every week.
And now, with twisted sheet metal and fried tempers left scattered across the Kansas plains, the Truck circus rolls on to North Wilkesboro. The Window World 250 is next up on the docket (Saturday, 1:30 p.m. ET, FS1), and if this Kansas showdown is any indication, you’ll want to be there—because these guys race like tomorrow’s outlawed and the trophy is filled with beer.
RACE RESULTS
Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" 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, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.