TALLADEGA, Ala. (AP) — Carson Hocevar earned the first victory of his NASCAR Cup Series career, outdueling Chris Buescher with a last-lap pass at Talladega Superspeedway on Sunday.
Hocevar, who drives the No. 77 Chevrolet for Spire Motorsports, joined Ty Gibbs (who won two weeks ago at Bristol Motor Speedway), as the second first-time winner this season.
Hocevar, who has made headlines for angering veterans with aggressive moves, won in his 91st start
in NASCAR’s premier series. The 23-year-old from Portage, Michigan, used a drafting push from Alex Bowman's No. 48 Chevrolet to edge past Buescher’s No. 17 Ford by 0.114 seconds.
Hocevar celebrated by taking a victory lap while sitting on his car's doorsill, making contact with the outside wall while doing an unconventional burnout and then hopping on his roof to encourage the crowd.
Bowman finished third (his best finish since missing four races with vertigo), followed by Chase Elliott and Zane Smith.
Hocevar capped a weekend of first-time NASCAR winners at the 2.66-mile oval. In the lower circuits on Saturday at Talladega, Corey Day (O’Reilly Auto Parts Series) and Andy Jankowiak (ARCA Menards Series) made their first trips to victory lane.
With tight packs at nearly 200 mph, Talladega is known for massive wrecks, and some contact at the front involved 26 of the 40 cars in the field on Sunday.
Bubba Wallace was leading on Lap 115 when he lost control of his No. 23 Toyota on a push by the No. 1 Chevrolet of Ross Chastain. Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano, Brad Keselowski and Kyle Larson were among those eliminated from contention in the crash, along with Wallace, who finished outside the top 30 for the third time in five races.
“It’s a bummer,” said the 23XI Racing driver, who was making his 300th Cup start. “But we’ve got to figure out how to be pushed better, so I take responsibility on that. And we’ll have a good debrief and figure out what we can do to make our Toyotas a little bit better at being pushed and maybe not have that happen.”
In an attempt to blunt the fuel conservation strategies that have become prevalent at superspeedways, NASCAR instituted a 98-lap first stage that covered more than half the race distance (which is typically the length of the final stage). The change resulted in an opening segment that ran for 85 minutes under green as drivers cautiously raced well below their maximum speeds to achieve optimum mileage.
They opened the second stage at full throttle, and the big pileup erupted only 10 laps later.
“It’s frustrating,” Logano said. “What do you want? Save fuel or crash? Pick one. That’s what it feels like right now. You’ve got round bumpers on these things. The cars are unstable. And once everyone starts pushing and racing aggressive, it’s going to happen. So until we fix that stuff, we’re going to continue seeing it, unfortunately.”
Points leader Tyler Reddick announced on the Fox prerace show that he had finalized a multiyear contract extension with 23XI Racing. Team co-owner Denny Hamlin recently had guaranteed the return of Reddick, who has 10 of his 13 career wins (including five this season) since joining 23XI Racing in 2023.
“Excited to have it all done and be able to continue building on what we’ve done,” Reddick said. “Just really glad that myself and 23XI were able to get to a good place and get the deal done. So I’ll be here for hopefully a long time.”
The NASCAR Cup Series will race May 3 at Texas Motor Speedway, the lone stop this season at the 1.5-mile oval near Fort Worth. Joey Logano won at Texas last year, the most recent Cup victory for the three-time series champion.
___
AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing
