Carson Hocevar won the Rookie of the Year title last season in his first full-time Cup Series campaign, wrapping up the year in P21. This year, he came out of the gate strong with a runner-up finish at Atlanta and followed it up with P6 at Talladega. Outside of those results, however, the road has been rough.
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Most of Hocevar’s finishes have landed beyond P20, including a P24 showing at Texas last weekend. And that came despite him earning his first career Cup Series pole.
Still, Hocevar believes there’s a silver lining. With the speed his car has shown across 11 races, he’d rather deal with mechanical hiccups than be stuck with an underpowered machine.
He said, “Yeah, I mean, it’s not good. I mean, if you were to pick your poison, I’d much rather be fast and have bad luck or misfortune or something happen than be slow and have to bank on other people’s misfortune, right? It’s more sustainable to be fast and have that happen because it normally fixes a lot of problems.”
Right now, that speed is the glue holding things together. According to Hocevar, they’ve run into everything from fuel pump failures and engine issues to pit lane missteps. These setbacks have forced the team to adapt by using components they’re less familiar with.
“So there’s some gremlins we were finding out at the start of the year, right? Last year, we had the same parts all year, and it went fine. This year, it’s like — oh, this burns this up or this does this or this does that. Yeah, you can’t get through a whole race, and you unfortunately learn that by trial by fire,” he explained.
He acknowledged that while luck hasn’t been on their side, the focus must remain on not adding fuel to the fire as they aim to avoid taking themselves out of the race. The universe is already doing that for them. The key, he believes, is avoiding compounding mistakes by pushing too hard when already on the back foot. He credits his team for weathering the storm and continuing to fight through the adversity.
A string of setbacks has kept Hocevar from turning raw pace into strong finishes. He began the season at Daytona with a DNF due to a fuel pressure issue, followed by another DNF at Phoenix after getting caught in a wreck. At Homestead, engine trouble sidelined him again.
Then, during his return to the Truck Series at Texas — his first Truck appearance since 2023 — he ran second before being forced to pit for a battery issue, finishing two laps down. In the Cup race at Texas, after starting at P1 and leading 22 laps, Hocevar misjudged his position on lap 237 and collided with Ryan Preece, ending his race against the wall.
Next, he’ll look to turn the tide at Kansas this Sunday, starting from 22nd. In his last two starts at the track, he finished 24th and 32nd.
