Hocevar Earns First Win
Jack Link's 500:
Carson Hocevar scored his first career NASCAR Cup Series win on Sunday, winning the Jack Link's 500 at Talladega Superspeedway over Chris Buescher. Hocevar made a few daring moves to snake his way through the field throughout the day, amazingly naviagted the "Big One" just past halfway, and was the class of the field over the last 40 or so laps to take the checkered flag to score an impressive and long anticipated first career win. And in elite Carson Hocevar style, capped it off with what may be the greatest celebration and burnout we have seen in NASCAR history.
Overall, the race was fine. I think we are moving in the right direction with superspeedway/drafting track racing, but there are still obvious issues with this car in this style of racing. I still hate how fuel strategy, fuel savings, and running partial throttle remains such a big talking point at places like Talladega and Daytona, and I hate that the cars are, for the most part, just stuck running two-by-two all day. Even coming to the checkered flag, the front of the field hardly changed until the tri-oval of the last lap as chaos takes over. Basically, I understand that I am driven partially by nostalgia, but also it just doesn't deliver racing that made NASCAR and drafting tracks what they were, and I think it's time NASCAR makes wholesale changes to make the racing better and more entertaining than the partial throttle fuel-saving slot cars we have with the Gen7 car. The two "saving graces" of the day were the "Big One" and the last caution that setup a dash to the checkered flag. And even they didn't do much. The "Big One" just eliminated a bunch of contenders and then the field immediately reverted to side-by-side fuel saving. And even the final caution just made the cars choose for a restart and give us the thrill of a three lap shootout with the possibility of someone doing something dumb to spice things up. Honestly, thanks goodness that didn't happen. Because while I may miss and think we need to return to drafting track racing of the past, what we did see was a masterclass dash to the checkered flag by Carson Hocevar. He managed the restart and his lane to perfection, and sailed out front as the field starting to disperse in the tri-oval. He earned his first career win with excellent driving. Of course, my favorite part of the whole ordeal was Carson's one of kind celebration. It was ballsy, it was dangerous, it was borderline dumb, but it was 100% badass and fan driven. That's why many folks, myself included, were thrilled to see Hocevar end up in victory lane.
Next up, we have all three NASCAR National Touring Series back in action this weekend at Texas Motor Speedway. The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series gets the weekend started on Friday evening at 8 p.m. EST on FS1 with the SpeedyCash.com 250. The O'Reilly Auto Parts Series hits the track on Saturday afternoon at 3:30 p.m. EST on The CW with the Andy's Frozen Custard 340. And the NASCAR Cup Series has their turn on the track on Sunday afternoon at 3:30 p.m. EST on FS1 with the Wurth 400.
Texas Picks: Trucks = Brandon Jones
NOAPS = Kyle Larson
Cup = William Byron
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