Bridesmaid no more.
Carson Hocevar finally broke through for his first career NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series win at Texas Motor Speedway, after a last lap crash took out three of the top four. After several second-place finishes and heartbreaking crashes from the lead, Hocevar finally broke down emotionally, this time triumphant.
Instead of Hocevar suffering from heartbreak, it was instead rookie Nick Sanchez, the polesitter and dominant truck of the day. He was side-by-side with Zane Smith on the final lap when Sanchez got loose and overcorrected (with minute help from Hocevar) into Smith, collecting Christian Eckes, who was running fourth at the time, in the process.
Sanchez’s 16th-place finish, combined with Hocevar’s breakthrough win, now leaves Sanchez as the driver of whom people are wondering when his time will come after coming close to a win a couple times now, just like Hocevar.
Chase Purdy finished a career-best second, followed by Stewart Friesen in third. Ty Majeski finished fourth and rookie Jake Garcia finished a career-best fifth.
Top Storylines of the Race
- Sanchez continued his impressive qualifying streak, winning his second pole in five starts. Outside of Atlanta Motor Speedway, Sanchez has never qualified outside the top five in his Truck Series career. Sanchez’s momentum allowed him to sweep the stages and lead the most laps (168) but came one lap short of that first career win.
- The usage of the non-competitive pit stop was utilized, as it was the first standalone race of the season for the series.
- Dean Thompson had a career day, spending a majority of the race in the top five and 10. However, his race came to a grinding halt with 15 laps to go when he hit the turn 4 outside wall and came to rest right in front of traffic, when he was slammed into twice by Matt Mills and Trey Hutchens III. The red flag was displayed to clean up the accident. Thompson was taken to the infield care center by ambulance and later to a local hospital for further evaluation. Fortunately, he was awake and alert in the care center.
- The end of the race was … something. We’ll talk more about it below.
- Among great finishes, Hailie Deegan captured a much needed sixth-place finish after a subpar start to the season, while Ryan Vargas and On Point Motorsports came home with an impressive eighth-place result.