Carson Hocevar has had a definite love-hate relationship with this Sunday’s NASCAR Cup playoff venue, World Wide Technology Raceway (also known as Gateway), just across the river from St. Louis.
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The 22-year-old from Portage, Michigan, has definitely had a checkered past at Gateway, and we’re not talking checkered flag.
- In 2022, Hocevar got into a bad wreck while competing in the Craftsman Truck Series, and suffered a broken ankle. Even so, to his credit, Hocevar did not miss any races and finished the season 10th.
- In 2023, Hocevar made his NASCAR Cup debut, and once again found trouble, hitting the Turn 1 wall on Lap 91 in a solo wreck, knocking him out of the race and finishing dead last in the 36-car field.
- But wait, there’s more! In 2024, Hocevar finally was able to avoid misfortune at Gateway, earning a full race finish of eighth, his best finish (and first complete race) at the 1.25-mile oval.
Hocevar comes into this Sunday’s race hoping to build upon his two career-best Cup finishes of second place this year at tracks very similar to Gateway, namely Atlanta and Nashville.
Even though his less than welcoming welcome to Gateway in the 2022 Truck race was quite auspicious, he has not forgotten it.
“I try not to think about the wreck and the injury,” Hocevar said earlier this week. “I think that’s what most drivers would do, you just can’t worry about that.
“The Cup debut and then coming back last year to kind of make up for how that first race ended, means a lot more to me.”
Even though he’s had more than his share of bad luck at Gateway, he still holds the place in high regard and looks forward to Sunday’s race.
“That’s where all of this started,” Hocevar said. “It’s where Spire Motorsports and Jeff Dickerson first saw something in me that made them think it might be good for me to move up.
“Whether other people think it was good or not doesn’t really matter, but Gateway is a special place for me and I love racing there every year.”
The 22-year-old Hocevar doesn’t infer that Gateway owes him a win or even a top-five finish, but the implication is somewhat there. And if Gateway truly wants to apologize to Hocevar for how it has mistreated him in the past, for the most part, his first career Cup win on Sunday would put their relationship on a much better plane.
“Just keep being you,” Hocevar said. “There will be a lot of tough days, but the good ones make up for them. You’ll piss off a lot of drivers, and that isn’t always fun, but you’ll end up with a good group of guys on the No. 77 who have your back and believe in you.”
