BRISTOL, Tenn. – Carson Hocevar looked well on his way to his first career NASCAR Camping World Truck Series victory in Saturday night’s Pinty’s Truck Race on Dirt at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway, but a caution with 11 laps to go put his inaugural Truck Series win at risk.
Hocevar, driving the No. 42 Niece Motorsports Chevrolet Silverado had a solid launch on the final restart with five laps remaining but the 19-year-old soon found himself having to defend his race line with a hard-charging Ben Rhodes slicing and dicing his way through the field.
Rhodes who pitted at the end of Stage 2 had fresher tires than Hocevar and despite his best effort to keep the ThorSport Racing driver at bay, Rhodes took control of the race with three laps remaining and pulled away from the Portage, Mich. native and forcing him to settle for a disappointing second place finish for the second time in his young career.
After the race, Hocevar said his options were limited in holding off a much faster Rhodes.
“Either rip the top (lane) or crash him,” he explained. “I mean, I hate saying that, but it’s part of this racing, right? He had newer tires and he had the fastest truck all day, so I was just trying really hard and hoping I could hold off.
“I kept looking up in the mirror hoping and man, he’s fifth and he really can’t go anywhere and once I knew he was fourth, I was like oh I’m in trouble here. He slide-jobbed me and I should have prepared for it, crossed him over and raced him really hard.”
Earning his first top-five finish of the season, Hocevar explained how finishing runner-up is a tough pill to swallow.
“Second just sucks,” he added. “It does. It’s terrible, especially with being that close.”
Hocevar’s truck on the truck bed paid tribute to friend and racing competitor Bryan Clauson who died in 2016 following a midget car crash at Belleville High Banks Speedway in Belleville, Kansas.
“We had Bryan Clauson’s logo on the car and I’m wearing the shirt still,” Hocevar explained after leading a career-high 55 laps. “I was hoping to be able to give him a tribute. He was definitely with me tonight.
“Hopefully, Tim (Clauson) and everyone that he really touched was really happy seeing that BC out front again. Just close. He (Bryan) was definitely with me tonight running that thing as hard as we were.”
With his third top-10 finish of the year in the books, Hocevar jumped to ninth in the Truck Series championship standings entering a two-week break before the series returns to competition at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway on Saturday, May 7, 2022.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
