{"id":631706,"date":"2026-04-27T10:51:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T10:51:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/631706\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T10:51:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T10:51:19","slug":"carson-hocevar-earns-1st-nascar-cup-victory-with-last-lap-pass-at-talladega-superspeedway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/631706\/","title":{"rendered":"Carson Hocevar earns 1st NASCAR Cup victory with last-lap pass at Talladega Superspeedway"},"content":{"rendered":"

TALLADEGA, Ala. (AP) \u2014 Carson Hocevar ensured the Talladega Superspeedway fans who witnessed his first NASCAR Cup Series<\/a> win would remember it.<\/p>\n

After outdueling Chris Buescher with a last-lap pass Sunday, Hocevar celebrated with one of NASCAR\u2019s most unconventional victory laps<\/a>. While sitting on the windowsill of his No. 77 Chevrolet to salute the crowd with fist pumps and waves, the lanky Hocevar managed to keep his left hand on the wheel while driving down the frontstretch.<\/p>\n

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He steered the car nose-first into the outside wall to perform a burnout before climbing onto the roof.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe looked like Shamu hanging out the window,\u201d said Jeff Dickerson, a co-owner of Hocevar’s Spire Motorsports car.<\/p>\n

The unique revelry was appropriate for the rising star who has made headlines by angering veterans with aggressive moves<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had this thought up for a while,\u201d Hoecvar said after becoming the 13th driver to earn his first Cup win at Talladega. \u201cI\u2019ve messed it up every which way to not be able to do it. I was going to figure out how to do it. It took me a while.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI\u2019m so thankful. This is the biggest dream I\u2019ve ever thought of. Thank you, everybody. I couldn\u2019t have done it any better way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hocevar joined Ty Gibbs ( who won two weeks ago at Bristol Motor Speedway<\/a> ), as the second first-time winner this season by winning his 91st start in NASCAR\u2019s premier series.<\/p>\n

The 23-year-old from Portage, Michigan, used a drafting push from Alex Bowman’s No. 48 Chevrolet to edge past Buescher\u2019s No. 17 Ford by 0.114 seconds.<\/p>\n

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Buescher had been getting drafting help from Erik Jones, who spun after contact from Hocevar while battling for second with seven laps remaining. Jones\u2019 No. 43 Toyota stalled to bring out the final yellow and set up a three-lap shootout in which Buescher and Hocevar ran side by side virtually all the way to the checkered flag.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a fun race,\u201d Buescher said. \u201cI felt really good where we were at coming off Turn 4. Felt like we were in a spot to take this Ford Mustang into victory lane. Man, it was close.”<\/p>\n

Bowman finished third (his best finish since missing four races with vertigo<\/a> ), followed by Chase Elliott and Zane Smith.<\/p>\n

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\u201cTo be blunt, it just feels good to get out of here without crashing,\u201d Bowman said. \u201cI\u2019m getting old and don\u2019t have much of that left in me. Glad to get out of here clean.\u201d<\/p>\n

Big wreck<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s a bummer,\u201d said the 23XI Racing driver, who was making his 300th Cup start. \u201cBut we\u2019ve got to figure out how to be pushed better, so I take responsibility on that. And we\u2019ll 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mileage still matters<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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They opened the second stage at full throttle, and the big pileup erupted only 10 laps later.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s frustrating,\u201d Logano said. \u201cWhat do you want? Save fuel or crash? Pick one. That\u2019s what it feels like right now. You\u2019ve got round bumpers on these things. The cars are unstable. And once everyone starts pushing and racing aggressive, it\u2019s going to happen. So until we fix that stuff, we\u2019re going to continue seeing it, unfortunately.\u201d<\/p>\n

New deal<\/p>\n

Points leader Tyler Reddick announced on the Fox prerace show<\/a> that he had finalized a multiyear contract extension with 23XI Racing. Team co-owner Denny Hamlin recently had guaranteed the return of Reddick<\/a>, who has 10 of his 13 career wins (including five this season) since joining 23XI Racing in 2023.<\/p>\n

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\u201cExcited to have it all done and be able to continue building on what we\u2019ve done,\u201d Reddick said. \u201cJust really glad that myself and 23XI were able to get to a good place and get the deal done. So I\u2019ll be here for hopefully a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Up next<\/p>\n

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<\/a>, the most recent Cup victory for the three-time series champion.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP auto racing: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/auto-racing<\/a><\/p>\n

The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLADEGA, Ala. (AP) \u2014 Carson Hocevar ensured the Talladega Superspeedway fans who witnessed his first NASCAR Cup Series…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":631707,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[3931,49,48,26749,7574,24888,3140,236476,5793,634,82,63751],"class_list":{"0":"post-631706","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-alex-bowman","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-carson-hocevar","12":"tag-chevrolet","13":"tag-chris-buescher","14":"tag-cup-series","15":"tag-jeff-dickerson","16":"tag-joey-logano","17":"tag-nascar","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-talladega"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=631706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/631707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=631706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=631706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=631706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}