Carson Hocevar has never been afraid to ruffle some feathers since moving to the NASCAR Cup Series full time in 2024. He brings his friends to the race track and doesn’t care what the competition thinks.
The latest example was during Sunday’s Autotrader 400 at EchoPark Speedway.
Hocevar led the way for Spire Motorsports in Atlanta, rebounding from multiple laps lost in the opening stage with a flat right-front tire. By Lap 82, he was back on the lead lap and parlayed that recovery into starting second on the outside line for the penultimate restart. The No. 77 Chevrolet shot to the middle of Bubba Wallace and Christopher Bell to begin the first overtime, turning the No. 20 Toyota into the outside wall.
“I’m sure I owe people apologies, but I think we’re all battling for spaces and runs,” Hocevar told Fox after the race, alluding to contact with Bell and Joey Logano at Lap 237, sending the No. 22 car through the frontstretch grass.
Bell told reporters that he had yet to see a replay of the incident, which dropped the No. 20 car to 21st in the finishing order. Bell ranks 31st in the regular-season championship standings, earning a mere 25 points through the opening two races of 2026.
“I’m going to keep my mouth shut until I see a replay,” Bell stated. “You never expect anything, especially from him. … Maybe there was a hole there and that’s what he thought he was going to fill.”
Hocevar powered on and restarted on the front row in double overtime. With a shove from fellow Chevrolet bowtie teammate Ross Chastain, the No. 77 car reached the lead with a lap-and-a-half remaining, splitting the middle of 23XI Racing drivers Bubba Wallace and Tyler Reddick.
To begin the final lap, Reddick inched ahead of Hocevar with help from his quasi-Toyota teammate Chase Briscoe. The Spire driver lacked help on the final lap, making contact with Wallace and dropping to fifth position. In the final set of corners, he passed Shane van Gisbergen for fourth position, with teammate Daniel Suarez in tow.
When the checkered flag waved, Spire Motorsports put two cars inside the top five for the first time on an oval. The team achieved that feat just one time previously, at the famed Watkins Glen International road course in 2024 with Hocevar and Zane Smith cracking the top five.
“I was really happy with this Spectrum Chevrolet,” Hocevar stated. “Our car was really fast to go from two laps down to getting stage points and finishing fourth. Overall, it was a good points day for us. I was taking every run I could.
“Luckily, all four tires were straight. My toe was knocked out, but it was still pretty fast and we finished fourth.”
Hanging low for much of the afternoon, Suarez finished 23rd and 25th in the opening two stages, respectively. But when the pay window opened, he drove to the top five for his fifth top-five result in nine starts at the reconfigured superspeedway, tops in the series.
“I’m very proud of everyone at Spire Motorsports,” Suarez said, completing his second points-paying start with the No. 7 bunch. “I couldn’t be prouder, honestly. This team just continues to fight; continues to show up and continues to get better. They never doubt that we can make the car better. We just need to keep cleaning a few things up to keep getting better, but very excited for the start of the season.”
After two races, Hocevar is fourth in the regular-season points, 30 points above the cutline. Suarez ranks seventh, 23 points to the good. The duo will lean on Michael McDowell, a road-course ace, next weekend at Circuit of The Americas. After two races, McDowell sits 20th in the championship standings.
Hocevar said: “Pretty excited about a strong start to the year. Now, I’m going to mess up a little bit on the road course, not being a total up-front contender, and then hopefully get back up front type of deal at Phoenix.”