Carson Hocevar played his strategy exactly right.
Ty Majeski had the best truck in the field in Saturday night’s WorldWide Express 250 Craftsman Truck Series race at Richmond Raceway, but a pass-through penalty for speeding on pit road put him on the back foot at the start of the final stage.
As the final stage went completely green, pit strategy proved key to deciding the winner. Majeski elected to stay out on track, while the rest of the field, including Hocevar, chose to pit.
“That was the strategy me and Phil (crew chief Phil Gould) talked about before the race, and we thought it would win, but we didn’t think it would be us,” Hocevar said.
“We didn’t come here to run second,’’ Hocevar said. “I knew we had to do something different and new tires prevailed.”
Hocevar was able to use his fresh rubber to get back on the lead lap and run down Majeski before the end of the race and celebrated with a fiery burnout before climbing the fence into the flagstand.
“It was definitely the truck by a long shot,” he said. We were circling this racetrack, we worked on the offseason in this track, in the sim, we worked on this track… we felt if we could work on this track we could improve our short track program across the board.”
It means a lot heading into the Playoffs, too.
“I’m just going to live it up,” he said.
But he doesn’t intend to take the win for granted and doesn’t think it confers any special momentum for the postseason.
Majeski ended up second after being passed in the closing laps.
“Just didn’t have enough there,’’ Majeski admitted. “Obviously made a mistake there, speeding on pit road but we had a chance to win even with the penalty. It’s just so disappointing. I don’t know if I’ve ever had a dominant vehicle that much faster than the field and to not win with it is so hard.”
“But we have fast race trucks and we’ll make a run at the Playoffs.”
Third-place Zane Smith was pleased by his performance, but is not a fan of Richmond.
“Happy with the end result,” he acknowledged.
“Just kind of struggled here since I got into a truck. In an Xfinity car I really enjoyed this place. Tonight I had some fun once we got our truck better. Ultimately a good finish to carry some momentum into the Playoffs.”
A fourth place for Jake Garcia is his best result of the year. He’ll end the regular season fifteenth in the standings, not good enough for a Playoffs berth, but he’ll end it on a high note. Pitting to split the stage was always his plan.
“We were really good in the first stage, I felt like, especially on the long run,” he said. “Just needed to be a little better, but we picked the right strategy. We knew coming in that if it went green to that point we were coming in and we decided to pull our ace.”
“That’s what we did, we did the math, figured it would be a little better but obviously everyone else figured it out too. Just really proud of our team finishing the year… hopefully we can get a win this year as we go into the Playoffs. Unfortunately did not make it, but really proud of our effort. Got some confidence in our truck,” Garcia added.
Matt DiBenedetto, Nick Sanchez, and Matt Crafton all secured a Playoff berth on points. Stewart Friesen didn’t make the cut.
DiBenedetto made the Playoffs for the first time in the Truck Series in his second season in contention, but he has Playoff experience on the Cup side. He said that helps his mindset, but was especially proud of his effort to make the postseason.
“At the beginning of the season we had some failures and DNFs and things that really bit us in the back and we had to do it the hard way and climb back up through a lot of hard work and perseverance,” he said.
“So I’m really proud of the team, pumped we’re in the Playoffs, and I really think we can make a good run in the Playoffs.”
Only seven cars finished on the lead lap, as a long green flag run, pit strategy, and big speed differential meant the leaders were able to lap the rest of the field.
16-year-old driver William Sawalich secured a top-ten finish for TRICON Garage after starting third in just his third-ever start.
“Everything we did was good,” Sawalich said. “I think I executed well for myself. I learned a few things here and there.”
“That long run in the end kind of killed us there with trucks passing us, and that ended up a net loss of time. I did the best I could trying to gain as much time and ended up in the top-10 there,” he added.
Christian Eckes, whose two wins ensure a Playoff berth, finished in eleventh. Those two wins gave him and his team the insurance to gamble on the pit call, even though staying out turned out to be the wrong decision as the race went green.
What more did he need?
“Just a caution,” he laughed. “Staying out there was not ideal looking back at it, but we had to gamble a little bit just to try to do something. We were a fourth or fifth place truck, really didn’t have anything more than that. So, disappointed for sure, but we can put this behind us and just move on.”
Two cautions for cause did happen in Stage 2, both for single-car spins. Dean Thompson blamed Hailie Deegan for his incident in Turn 2 while Justin Carroll spun by himself in Turn 4.
Burned it down. pic.twitter.com/spR7TjJp4k
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) July 30, 2023
RACE RESULTS (PDF)
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