The cold hard facts will show that Carson Hocevar drove through the field at a track where passing was at an absolute premium all weekend long, making up 25 spots from his starting position of 26th, to finish second behind race winner Ryan Blaney.
The result equaled Hocevar’s career-best mark in the Cup Series — he finished second at Atlanta Motor Speedway in race two of the 2025 season — and was his third career top five. But despite the positive result, the finish left the 22-year-old wanting more.
“I mean my dream is to and expectation is to be here and win races and be up front,” Hocevar said. “And yeah, it sucks when you don’t [win] because I feel like if I wasn’t disappointed, I don’t deserve the seat. When I was a fan, I’d hate when people were pumped about second or pumped about third or whatever. I said I’d never be like that and I feel like I’m not.
“It’s tough to live by when you’re constantly not winning, obviously, but yeah, I’m proud of the execution. I can still be happy about how we executed. I mean, we were the second best today and I don’t think we were better than the 12 or anything I could have done differently, but still just, you want to win.”
But as has often been the case during his 59-race (and counting) tenure in Cup, Hocevar found himself mired in controversy. On this particular night, there was an incident with Ricky Stenhouse Jr. when Hocevar ran into the left-rear of the Hyak Motorsports driver, spinning him into the wall and ending the 15-year veteran’s race.
“Yeah, I kind of got a run and felt like I was kind of there, like I felt like I was there enough to get a call inside and have him just kind of run the middle,” noted Hocevar. “Honestly, he probably could have cleared me, so that’s just what I expected him to do. And he didn’t, and by the time I checked up, I almost spun too. So yeah, if he wants to talk, I’ll gladly talk, but you know I feel like it’s just a product of this … unfortunately it’s just everybody just kind of tries to get there, and you know I think there were a bunch of people that got shipped.”
Unsurprisingly, Stenhouse saw the incident in a different light.
“He had tried to dive bomb me two laps before that from about 10 or 12 car lengths back and then, he finally was close enough that time just to wipe us out, so bummer for all our team,” Stenhouse said. “I think it’s definitely over-aggressive. You know, I think that’s Carson. You know, maybe I should have just hung a right, let him go. I’m not sure if he would have gotten to my inside. I would have let him go, but, to keep dive bombing me and you know you can’t just give up spots just to give up spots, so I felt like it was definitely over-aggressive.”
Worth noting, too, that Hocevar held off a hard charging Denny Hamlin, in his 700th race, beating the Joe Gibbs Racing vet to the line by just three-tenths of a second. For Hamlin, with the birth of his third child and first son happening any day now, the finish equaled the best of any driver in his 700th race, tying Jeff Gordon’s finish at Darlington Raceway.
Next up for Hocevar, a Portage, Mich. native, and the Cup Series is a trip to his hometown track. And what better place for a maiden Cup victory could there be for Hocevar?
“It feels really good, especially going to Michigan, qualifying draw,” said Hocevar. “I think it’s gonna be super important, home race, I think that’s gonna fit us even better than here.”
Danny starts his 12th year with Frontstretch in 2018, writing the Tuesday signature column 5 Points To Ponder. An English transplant living in San Francisco, by way of New York City, he’s had an award-winning marketing career with some of the biggest companies sponsoring sports. Working with racers all over the country, his freelance writing has even reached outside the world of racing to include movie screenplays.