{"id":948634,"date":"2026-10-27T22:10:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T22:10:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/948634\/"},"modified":"2026-10-27T22:10:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T22:10:16","slug":"nascars-carson-hocevar-explains-how-he-stayed-in-race-after-talladega-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/948634\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR\u2019s Carson Hocevar Explains How He Stayed in Race After Talladega Crash"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"Carson\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGetty\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

NASCAR driver Carson Hocevar explains how he managed to stay in the race following a crash at Talladega Superspeedway and what happened afterward.<\/p>\n

Carson Hocevar says an enthusiastic Talladega tow truck driver kept his race alive after the late wreck that flipped Joey Logano. That driver\u2019s quick work turned a wrecked No. 77 Chevrolet into a sixth-place finish, and Hocevar says he still wants to learn the man\u2019s name. <\/p>\n

Hocevar later took the blame for instigating the Logano<\/a> crash. But unlike Logano, Hocevar got his car back into the Talladega race with the help of a tow truck driver.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe tow truck driver was a massive MVP of the situation. So, I\u2019m down the backstretch, right? And I\u2019ve got four flat tires, can\u2019t go anywhere. I\u2019m in the wall,\u201d Hocevar said, on the Turn Four Report podcast Tuesday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cNormally, they come up to the door and they\u2019re like, \u2018Are you okay? Are you all right? What\u2019s the plan?\u2019 None of that was asked. Nothing. All of a sudden, the tow truck driver runs over. He goes, \u2018Hey, man, I\u2019m going to keep you in the race.\u2019 And I was like, \u2018Sounds good. Go!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd he\u2019s like, \u2018All right,\u2019 and then takes off, gets in the truck, slams the door, and we start going 45 mph on the tow truck. We pass cars that are trying to limp to pit road,\u201d Hocevar said.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"\"\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Carson Hocevar\u2019s Role in the Talladega Wreck<\/p>\n

The wreck came on lap 183 of the YellaWood 500, five laps from the scheduled finish. Logano was shoving Ross Chastain, who led the outside lane, when Hocevar pushed him from behind, according to Sports Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Logano\u2019s No. 22 Team Penske Ford spun into the outside wall and landed on its roof, sliding down the frontstretch. A 15-car pileup followed, collecting Chase Briscoe, Brad Keselowski, Austin Cindric, Josh Berry and Riley Herbst, according to The Associated Press<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was inching at him in the tri-oval, because obviously we need to have to do that in the third lane, and yeah, I just spun him. But I was more so looking at my rearview, so that\u2019s on me for that, but yeah, that\u2019s my fault,\u201d he told reporters, according to On3<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hocevar said he was watching his mirror to judge how the lanes would merge when he felt the bump.<\/p>\n

\u201cI only really got flats and a hole in the right side door, but other than that, I was fine. \u2026 They have to push me out of the garage, so we had everybody back there, so they put four tires on, pushed me out of the garage, and I got going,\u201d Hocevar said.<\/p>\n

Hocevar started 26th and lost ground to a pit-road speeding penalty before working toward the front, according to EssentiallySports<\/a>. He finished sixth on the lead lap, 0.182 seconds behind winner Kyle Larson, and collected 31 points, according to TobyChristie.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Carson Hocevar\u2019s Tow Truck Help Under NASCAR Rules<\/p>\n

The Damaged Vehicle Policy covers the help Hocevar described. NASCAR provides limited assistance, including a lift system or tow straps, to a car stopped by flat tires, and towed cars go to the garage repair area, as laid out in Rule 8.8.9, according to Jayski<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Before the 2025 rewrite, a tow to the garage ended a car\u2019s race, according to NASCAR\u2019s January 2025 announcement<\/a>. Repairs in the garage carry no time limit, and a returning car gets one attempt to reach minimum speed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI need to find this tow truck guy\u2019s name. I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s legal or not, but I was like, \u2018Dude, that dude needs a couple hundred bucks<\/a> or something, or at least some gift card,\u2019\u201d Hocevar said on the podcast.<\/p>\n

The rule text does not address gratuities, and no penalty tied to the recovery has been reported.<\/p>\n

Hocevar, 23, was born Jan. 28, 2003, in Portage, Michigan, and began racing quarter midgets at age 7. He debuted in the Truck Series in 2019, won five races in 2023 and reached the Championship 4 with Niece Motorsports. He moved to the Cup Series full time in 2024 and won his first Cup race April 26 at Talladega, beating Chris Buescher by 0.114 seconds.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"\"\/<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tJonathan Vankin<\/a> JONATHAN VANKIN is an award-winning journalist who covers MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, boxing, golf, and Olympic sports for Heavy.com. He twice won New England Newspaper and Press Association awards for sports feature writing. He was a sports editor and writer at The Daily Yomiuri in Tokyo, Japan, covering the Olympics, pro baseball, boxing, sumo and other sports. More about Jonathan Vankin<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty NASCAR driver Carson Hocevar explains how he managed to stay in the race following a crash at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":948635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":["post-948634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948634","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=948634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/948635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=948634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=948634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=948634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}