“You\u2019re just running through and it\u2019s however hard you can push someone and the cars are so unstable in the back that they get ping ponging and can\u2019t take it.”<\/p>\n
Despite the best efforts from NASCAR to try to shake up the superspeedway product this weekend by reversing the cadence of the race, everything that needs addressing during the off-season was on full display.<\/p>\n
Because this car has so much inherent drag, it\u2019s impossible for a driver to pull out of line and attempt to form a new line. Recognizing this, the only way to get track position is for drivers to save fuel and spend less time on pit road while refueling.<\/p>\n
But fans rejected drivers running around at partial throttle so NASCAR effectively flipped the race so that all the fuel saving took place in the first half. Once the first-of-two full-throttle stages began, it immediately resulted in a 26-car crash.<\/p>\n
Gridlock throughout the final run<\/p>\n
Carson Hocevar<\/a> and Chris Buescher<\/a> started the final stage on the front row and they controlled the race from that point to the very end. A driver from the second row on back couldn\u2019t jump out of line because they would simply fall to the tail end of the field.<\/p>\n Pushing Hocevar to the win, Alex Bowman<\/a> said there was very little he could do to control his own destiny in that scenario.<\/p>\n \u201cReally, the only thing is push (Hocevar) out far enough to feel like he needed to defend the top lane and playing both sides,\u201d Bowman said. \u201cOnce he starts moving, there might be an opportunity to get clear but that didn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think there was an opportunity for me to move up and I don\u2019t think I would have, statistically, because these races are mostly won from the bottom. It\u2019s hard to say if I could have done anything differently.<\/p>\n Chase Elliott<\/a> was third on the outside and didn\u2019t have any options on the table either.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was tough to do anything,\u201d Elliott said. \u201cYou just kind of get yourself in line and do the best you can. For me, that was pushing (Ricky Stenhouse) and try to give him the best pushes I could and hope something would form for me, with that.<\/p>\n \u201cIt seemed like we couldn\u2019t get a big enough run to make our lane do something different. We tried and those runs just didn\u2019t go anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s really hard to do anything” Carson Hocevar, Spire Motorsports<\/p>\n Photo by: Sean Gardner \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n And the third line was not an option.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s really hard to do anything,\u201d Elliott said. \u201cYou\u2019re just stuck in that situation. The first stage was interesting. I didn\u2019t know who was going to stretch it or two stop it. But we were going really slow doing it. I felt like we were going really slow.<\/p>\n \u201cYou get to the end and it\u2019s just a death trap to pull out of line and try a third lane. It just doesn\u2019t go when everyone is pushing at that pace on the bottom two lanes.\u201d<\/p>\n Alex Bowman says solving this dilemma is going to take \u2018a massive change\u2019 with the race car.<\/p>\n \u201cFundamentally, if that\u2019s downforce, horsepower or drag; tire,\u201d Bowman said. \u201cI have no idea. I personally feel like the car is so draggy that when you pull out of line, you just stop. You see the third lane make hay for a second and they just die. So, they have to knock speed out of them with horsepower, and knock some drag out of them, I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n \u201cThey can\u2019t just take all the drag out because then we\u2019re going to go 220 mph, right? They\u2019re in a box. I\u2019m sure there are some really smart people trying to figure it out or maybe they\u2019re happy with it. I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n \u201cI finished third so I\u2019m not that mad about it but it doesn’t seem like you guys (the media) are happy with it, so I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n Brad Keselowski, RFK Racing, Bubba Wallace, 23XI Racing<\/p>\n Photo by: Icon Sportswire via Getty Images<\/p>\n
\n ![\"Carson](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/carson-hocevar-wins.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Brad](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/brad-keselowski-rfk-racing-bub.jpg\")
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