By Luis Torres, Staff Writer/Photographer
FORT WORTH, Texas – A full moon Friday night certainly created captivating moments and Carson Hocevar was no exception.
After overcoming a slow green flag pit stop and nesting through the competition with chaos in his rearview mirror, Hocevar rode the ‘dente for the second time in five days.
Only this time, it was in the Craftsman Truck Series as Hocevar held off his Spire Motorsports teammate Kyle Busch to bring the organization a 1-2 finish in the SpeedyCash.com 250 at Texas Motor Speedway.
The recent Cup Series winner had a superb overtime restart over Gio Ruggiero, but they would battle hard for the lead.
Then at the exit of Turn 3 exit, Hocevar sealed the deal by clearing past Ruggiero and said goodbye to the competition coming to the white flag. Even taking the time to see the battle behind him on the jumbotron before taking the checkered flag.
Just like at Talladega last Sunday, Hocevar hopped out of the truck while doing so with the crowd erupting with jubilation. A moment he’s going to go all-in until a rule change is made where he can no longer do it or catches a beer from a fan, which he’ll be prepared this time.
Furthermore, the cheerful fans in Fort Worth, who witnessed a 172-lap frenzy chanted Hocevar’s name, providing elation to the 23-year-old.
“It’s been unbelievable. It means a lot. I’m going to burn down Chili’s, I can’t leave. So we got to burn Chili’s somewhere,” said Hocevar. “Man, what a fun race. We had a reverse order with the 1-2 with Kyle. I watched him win a lot of Truck race, so it’s finally good to put an end to his Texas streak.”
Hocevar added that restarts and having a strong Chevrolet Silverado made a significant difference to rally back to the front after a loose wheel slowed down his pit stop while leading the race.
Once the issue was solved, the joy and passion of doing what Hocevar loves shines.
“We are supposed to win this race for sure, but I’m not going to cry myself to sleep if we don’t. I’ll cry myself we lose on Sunday though,” said Hocevar. “These truck races, I hope it’s a really fun race and I want to enjoy it. If I make a thousand moves, but made one wrong, I’ll still make a thousand moves.”
Ruggiero’s victory aspirations ended up falling apart in Turn 1 when his No. 17 Toyota Tundra got sideways after being pinched by his TRICON Garage teammate Hayden Honeycutt which led to him nearly contacting Layne Riggs, who too had to overcome some mid-race drama after having windshield issues. Ruggiero lost several track positions and crossed the line in 14th.
Despite the disappointment, Ruggiero had a bright outlook regarding the overall performance of his team.
“It was a good race. I definitely held onto track position the whole time. We had a fast truck so it was easy to do that,” said Ruggiero. “But yeah, definitely just didn’t finish anywhere near where we should’ve with the truck we had. I’m happy with how good the truck was. I think that’s really good as a team moving forward into the next few races to have that speed.
“If we can run like that every race, we’ll win a lot of races. Definitely a positive note on that side. (It was just) tough on those restarts there at the end of the race. It’s so hard to break away from the trucks behind you here,” Ruggiero continued.
“I feel like the draft – they can get such a huge run on you. You just have to really be super aggressive on defense mode. It was tough at the end there. Just have to execute the last restart better and probably would’ve won the race.”
While Ruggiero waned, Busch capitalized on the opportunity to snooker by those guys and grabbed second. Like Hocevar and Riggs, Busch also had to muscle his way back and forth into the running order after having a flat tire in Stage 1.
In the end, Busch capped off the team’s 1-2 effort with points leader Honeycutt, Brandon Jones and pole sitter Ben Rhodes rounding out the top-five.
Busch explained that his truck felt loose at the start of the race which kick started his night that in his own words was “eventful” and felt Hocevar made it even between them in the wins column as Truck Series teammates.
“We made a lot of adjustments to get it close. When we put tires on our last set of tires, we were really fast. I felt really good and in the race track, and better. I was struggling with grip all night long,” said Busch. “It would’ve been nice to be in victory lane, but it’s good to have a teammate in there and have him get his shot. I got one, he got one. Now we’re even there.”
The Truck series will head to Watkins Glen International for the running of the Bully Hill Vineyards 176 at The Glen. Coverage begins Friday, May 8 at 4:30 p.m. ET on FS1.
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