Hocevar keeps the good times rolling with another top 10 in Texas

Carson Hocevar kept the momentum rolling through Sunday’s race at Texas Motor Speedway with a strong showing after winning the pole, finishing seventh after leading 40 laps.

It was the third top-10 finish for Hocevar and his Spire Motorsports team in the last four races, and fifth in 11 races on the season.

“It was fun,” Hocevar said. “It was a good run for everybody at Spire between the [No.] 7 and myself, and Spectrum to get them a good run and finally a good finish. Yeah, it was great for us, honestly. We led a lot of laps, ran up front, finished second in Stage 1, and put ourselves in a good spot to start Stage 2, and then got that caution, and that just put us behind the eight ball.

“I had to restart in the 20s, and we made an adjustment, and we probably shouldn’t have.”

Daniel Suarez and his No. 7 team finished one spot ahead of Hocevar in sixth position. The duo started the afternoon on the front row together after qualifying first and second.

The weekend commenced with Hocevar fresh off his first career Cup Series victory at Talladega Superspeedway. Friday night, Hocevar won the Craftsman Truck Series race he entered before grabbing the Cup Series pole the next day. It was his second straight pole in Texas, and he turned that into leading the most laps he has ever led in a single Cup Series race (the previous being 32 last year in Michigan).

“I was just tight all day, and we kept working on it a little bit and then had to inch at it one at a time,” Hocevar said. “It’s tough to pass here, for sure. But it’s just fun to run good after last week and everything, and put ourselves sixth in points. That’s really strong for us.”