By David Morgan, Associate Editor
SPEEDWAY, Ind. – Carson Hocevar will lead the field to green in Sunday’s running of the Brickyard 400 after scoring the pole on Saturday in a front row sweep for Spire Motorsports.
Piloting his No. 77 Chevrolet around the famed 2.5-mile speedway, the 23-year-old laid down a lap of 48.232 seconds, 186.598 mph, that would not be bested, landing him in prim position for Sunday’s race with teammate Daniel Suarez starting alongside.
That it was a Spire 1-2 in qualifying at Indianapolis is apropos given the parent company that owns Spire, TWG, also owns a famed IndyCar team in Andretti Global, which has a storied history at this track that Hocevar and Suarez will look to build on.
Indianapolis marks Hocevar’s second pole of the season and the second 1-2 sweep for the team with him and Suarez after the duo accomplished the same at Texas in May.
“It’s just cool for me to get anything here (at Indianapolis Motor Speedway),” said Hocevar. “If I was 20 years into my career and I hadn’t won anything in Indy, I’d look into a marathon or something, just so I could get an award here. It doesn’t matter what it is, it’s just really cool to get something here.
“I get to look out at the backstretch behind this media center here and there’s a parking lot with a bunch of rubber. That’s where I grew up racing quarter midgets. I have a few bricks from that, and now, I can cherish a pole award at least on my third time here.
“Hopefully, that can give us a good advantage for tomorrow. Anything here is super important, just because the prestige of this place really raises everybody’s intensity. Everybody’s trying here, if not a little bit more, because they know how much it means to everybody. Yeah, it’s super cool.”
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Hocevar also noted that should he be able to finish atop the board on Sunday, he’s got a plan to outdo his victory celebration from Talladega.
Just don’t tell Roger Penske.
“I think it will just kind of come to me. I don’t want to say it out loud because I think Roger Penske would kill me if he knew some of the ideas I had,” Hocevar joked. “But also, too, there’s tradition here, so you’ve got to really watch yourself a little bit. But yeah, they were getting pumped up after qualifying, so I can’t imagine how loud they would be if we do win.”
A trio of Toyotas in Tyler Reddick, Ty Gibbs, and Denny Hamlin will round out the top-five, with the remainder of the top-10 going to Michael McDowell in a third Spire entry, Corey Heim, Alex Bowman, AJ Allmendinger, and 2024 Brickyard 400 winner Kyle Larson.
Other notables include native Hoosier Chase Briscoe starting in 11th place, Christopher Bell starting in 23rd after leading practice and defending race winner Bubba Wallace rolling off from 29th place.
Sunday’s Brickyard 400 will kick off at 2:00 pm ET on TNT.
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