Carson Hocevar had to pit before Saturday night’s Worldwide Express 250 even began. He had a flat tire. That dropped him to last to begin the 2023 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series regular season finale.
That didn’t faze him. The 20-year-old quickly charged through the field to take the race sponsored baby blue truck to victory in the lightning delayed race at the Richmond (VA) Raceway.
“Man I sucked at this place,” Hocevar said after scoring his third career win in his 70th start. “The 98 (Ty Majeski) threw it away. I felt like I had the second-best truck but the best pit crew and crew chief.”
Hocevar passed every truck in the field but it was the last one in passing Ty Majeski with four laps remaining that was the winning move.
Here’s my top five takeaways from the night.
Majeski Dominates, But Pit Road Penalty/Strategy Costs Him A Win
Ty Majeski led 131 of the first 146 laps on Saturday night. He was the class of the field but speeding on pit road coming to his pit stop after his second stage win of the night cost him a chance at victory lane.
While he restarted at the end of the lead lap, he quickly made his way back inside of the top five in just 18 laps. He was charging hard and even made it back to second place in the final 60 or so laps.
That forced everyone to make a decision that instead of running this thing out, they would pit and cut this final stage in half. If they would go the route that they were going, they were going to hand the win back to Majeski again.
So, Zane Smith peeled off on Lap 201. Hocevar pit on Lap 209. Majeski inherited the lead when Hocevar hit pit lane.
The thing is, he burned his tires up speeding back through the field and with having to go from Lap 175 until Lap 250 without stopping, it wasn’t going to be the winning route.
“Helpless. Obviously made a mistake speeding on pit road. Disappointing. What an unbelievably fast race truck,” Majeski said.
Hocevar exited pit lane 35 seconds behind Majeski with 40 laps left. With 22 to go, it was 17.21 seconds. 12 laps later, it was down to 4.3-seconds. A lap later, it was nearly chopped in half down to 2.7. It was less than a second with 5 to go then one lap later, Hocevar made his move to the lead. Majeski was settling for second at that point and did so 2.308-seconds back.
“Even without speeding, I don’t think that strategy would have won it,” he continued. “I don’t know if I’ve ever had a vehicle that good and capable of dominating the field but sucks to not win with it. Disappointed with myself. We win as a team and lose as a team.”
Majeski led a race-high 168 of 250 laps and goes into the playoffs winless this season and riding a 17 race drought. This was his fifth top seven finish in the last seven races including three straight.
Rough Night For Friesen
Stewart Friesen came into the night nine points behind the cutline. Unfortunately, without any stage points (26th, 20th) and a 27th place finish, he won’t be playoff bound in 2023.
“We brought a knife to a gun fight tonight,” a dejected Friesen said. “It kind of is what it is.”
Friesen had made the playoffs in 4 of his 6 seasons previously. It was those results of 13th, 22nd, 18th, 32nd and 27th tonight in the last 7 races for what took him out.
Heim Regular Season Champion
Corey Heim’s sixth place finish in both stages allowed him to clinch the regular season crown early.
42 points separated Heim and Zane Smith for the pursuit of the regular season championship in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. That was too large of a gap for Smith to overcome as Heim will be the No. 1 seed heading into the playoff opener at IRP in a couple of weeks.
The top seed in the playoffs was represented in the Championship 4 in 6 of the 7 years under this format including all consecutively. The No. 1 seed also has won 3 championships in this era but just two in the last 5 years though. One was last year.
Heim, despite missing a race (World Wide Technology Raceway) for a sickness, has finished in the top eight in all but two starts this season. In fact, he’s not finished worse than eighth since Bristol Dirt including finishes of 2nd, 4th, 1st, 2nd and 6th respectively over his last five tries.
Smith Finding Momentum Again
Zane Smith was singing his teams’ praises following a third place finish in Saturday night’s race. He said that they had no shot for much of this race, but credited his team doing a 180 on his truck all night to set him up for his 33rd career top five finish and 55th top 10.
Smith and 20th at the end of Stage 1 and 11th in the second one. But, he rose in the final stage and took a gamble by pitting first among the leaders in the final stage on Lap 201.
He’d get passed late by Carson Hocevar who had 8 lap fresher tires than he did but was able to hold the rest off en route to his third top three finish in the last four races.
Prior to this, he finished 22nd, 32nd 23rd and 20th respectively. In fact, after winning 2 of the first 4 races and having 3 top 2’s in that span, over his next eight starts he finished 14th or worse in 6 of them. So, for him to have this stretch entering the postseason is making him hot again.
He won the regular season title and championship just last season. Smith has also advanced to the final round in all three of his years in the Truck Series as well.
He ended up with 8 top 5 finishes this regular season. He had 9 at this point a year ago.
The only difference? Smith has 3 wins in 2022 and 2 so far this year. It’s also in top 10’s. Smith had 13 in 2022 with far more consistency. He has 8 right now.
Playoffs Set
Coming into the night, 7 drivers were locked into the playoffs. Heim, Smith, Christian Eckes, Grant Enfinger, Carson Hocevar and Ben Rhodes were all in on wins. Ty Majeski (+110 entering) was in on points. But, there were three more spots for the taking.
Matt DiBenedetto (+31), Nicholas Sanchez (+21) and Matt Crafton (+9) were each on the good side of the cut line.
They remained there too meaning the playoff field is set.
- Corey Heim 2030
- Zane Smith 2022
- Carson Hocevar 2021
- Christian Eckes 2019
- Grant Enfinger 2017
- Ty Majeski 2014
- Ben Rhodes 2013
- Nick Sanchez 2005
- Matt DiBenedetto 2002
- Matt Crafton 2002
Heim, Sanchez and DiBenedetto are rookies to the playoffs.
8 drivers will make it out of the first round. Among the bottom three right now:
DiBenedetto has 8 top 10 finishes over the last 11 races on the season including 6 in the last 7
Sanchez has 5 top 10’s in the last 6.
Crafton has 3 in the last 10 and just one top five finish all season (Bristol Dirt).
Can they catch Rhodes who has 5 top 10’s in his last 6 tries and had a second-place truck before a commitment line violation on his final stop.
Majeski has 5 top 7’s in his last 7 tries.
Enfinger won at IRP last year and has 3 top 5 finishes in the last 6 races run on the season.
Eckes has 4 top 7’s in his last 6 tries and 5 in the last 8.
Hocevar has 6 top 5’s in the last 8 starts including a pair of wins.
Smith has three top three’s in the last four while Heim has nine straight top eight finishes including results of 2nd, 4th, 1st, 2nd, 6th over his last five starts.
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