By David Morgan, Associate Editor
FORT WORTH, Texas – When you’re hot, you’re hot.
Fresh off his first NASCAR Cup Series win at Talladega Superspeedway last weekend and a win in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Texas Motor Speedway on Friday night, Carson Hocevar kept the momentum rolling in Cup Series qualifying by scoring the pole for Sunday’s Wurth 400.
Rolling off last in the qualifying order, Hocevar would have to knock his Spire Motorsports teammate Daniel Suarez off the top of the board and did just that with a lap of 28.222 seconds, 191.340 mph to Suarez’s 28.225 second lap to snag his first pole of the season and second overall.
Hocevar also won the pole for the 2025 race at Texas, finishing 24th after leading 22 laps on the day.
He explained that even though his car didn’t have the speed in practice only pacing 22nd fastest, he had a feeling they would have something when it was time for qualifying.
“…Not quite often that I sit there and just go 22nd in practice and I go, yeah, we’re going to win the pole as long as I don’t mess this up,” said Hocevar. “Especially when I saw Daniel roll out, our cars are very similar and everything. I was like, I think we’ll be really close. I didn’t expect to be that close, but I was just glad I was on the front end of it.”
The Hurricane @CarsonHocevar strikes again! pic.twitter.com/uivEHtRUYY
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) May 2, 2026
Hocevar added that he didn’t know where exactly he made up the difference to be able to overtake Suarez for the pole, but was happy to have been able to put together a lap to back up his feeling going into the run for the pole.
“I don’t know where those three thousandths are. I’m just glad I had ’em in the bank. But yeah, my lap felt pretty good,” Hocevar said.
“It wasn’t quite keying up on the radio… I forget, I think it was somebody said it, it’s just like, I remember watching TV of it when they’re like, if they beat that they can have it and then they don’t get beat. And I wasn’t quite doing that, but I was coming off Turn 4 and I was like, man, if this isn’t fast, I’m going to be so disappointed.
“It felt good and that’s the worst when it feels good and it’s slow, so I’m just glad there was lots of pace in it.”
Despite just missing out on the pole for himself, Suarez chalked it up to a total team effort for the front row lockout for the two Spire teammates, especially after rebounding from a flat tire in practice to come back and make a run at the pole.
“I really want to give a lot of credit to everyone at Spire Motorsports. To lock up the front row like that, that kind of performance in unbelievable. Everyone at Spire Motorsports, the men and women that work very, very hard for this program. What about this power? [Hendrick Motorsports] power is amazing,” said Suarez.
“You know, if I was going to get beat by someone, I’m glad it was my teammate.”
Behind the two Spire Chevrolets will be Chris Buescher in third, as he looks to score a win at his home track, followed by Denny Hamlin in fourth, and Chase Briscoe rounding out the top-five.
Kyle Busch will start sixth in his first race with new crew chief Andy Street, along with Christopher Bell, Tyler Reddick, Alex Bowman, and Ty Gibbs to make up the remainder of the top-10 starters.
The fastest car in practice, William Byron will start in 15th place.
Bubba Wallace and Austin Dillon will start in 37th and 38th place, respectively after issues in practice. Wallace posted the fifth fastest time before spinning into the outside wall in Turn 1, relegating him to a backup car for Sunday’s race.
“It just came around out of nowhere and surprised me,” said Wallace. “I knew I was loose in the moment and tried to correct it and it was too late. I hate it. I thought we had some decent speed in our Chumba Casino Camry. Just a long Saturday.
“…It was on edge, just like Texas is just trying to find the right balance for us in our team. So it was going to be a good debrief to figure out if we can get some more speed, but just have to rely on our teammates and go get it tomorrow.”
Dillon had a mechanical issue that sent him to the garage during practice, keeping him off the track for the remainder of the day.
Sunday’s Wurth 400 will roll off at 2:30 pm ET on FOX Sports 1. Joey Logano is the defending race winner.
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