Carson Hocevar leaves center of EchoPark storm fourth: 'There was a shot there'

HAMPTON, Ga. -- For the second straight year, Carson Hocevar was third coming to the white flag at EchoPark Speedway in overtime.

For the second straight year, the Spire Motorsports driver had to settle for a top-five finish that left him out of Victory Lane.

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Hocevar took the checkered flag fourth in Sunday's Autotrader 400, but he was on the front row when the green flag waved in double overtime with two Chevrolet partners in his mirror, leaving the 23-year-old critical of himself for the outcome as his pursuit of Cup win No. 1 continues.

"I mean, I choked," Hocevar said.

He did recognize that it was a far better result than last week's Daytona 500, in which he led when the white flag waved until crashing with a late block that plummeted him down the leaderboard.

"We finished single digits, top five," Hocevar said. "Better result than last week, so excited about that. Came from two laps down and knocked around a little bit to finish fourth, so happy about that."

Knocked around a little, indeed.

Hocevar's race exemplified every praise and criticism that comes his way, utilizing his brazen confidence to build runs and carve through traffic while, perhaps, bruising some competitors' feelings along the way.

His most notable contact came on the first restart on Lap 266, with Hocevar restarting just behind front-row-sitter Christopher Bell. Exiting the quad-oval, Hocevar squeezed between leaders Bell and Bubba Wallace in an effort to take the lead. Instead, that contact sent Bell nose-first into the outer retaining SAFER barrier, crunching the front of his race car while Hocevar scurried to a front-row restart of his own just a couple laps later.

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"I haven't seen it, so I'm gonna keep my mouth shut till I see a replay," Bell said .

With a win on the line, Hocevar saw an opening and was getting help from behind in the form of a Ross Chastain push. That was all he needed to be convinced to take his chance after losing to Bell in a photo finish in last year's spring race at the 1.54-mile oval.

"I mean, I fit a car in there," Hocevar said. "I got such a big run and he kind of opened it, and as I got there, I felt like there was a hole. But I got there so fast that I'm sure it was by all means closed by the time I got there. So yeah, I mean, I don't mean to tear them up obviously, but at the same time, I felt like that move was probably gonna win us the race last year, and it just happened to be the same car.

"I felt like if I got an opportunity, I was gonna shoot for it. And I felt like with the push that Ross gave me, there was a shot there."

There's an argument to be made that one moment shouldn't detract from what was an otherwise positive weekend for the third-year Spire racer. In the words of Kyle Busch , Hocevar was a "great teammate" in Saturday's NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race as Hocevar pushed Busch to the win in a Spire 1-2. On Sunday, Hocevar found himself in dustups with Bell, Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney, but he ultimately believed he played this race smarter than previous attempts toward Cup glory.

"I feel like I've done a good job," Hocevar said. "You know, I was sitting there riding around for a while and biding my time and felt like I've been more patient but more precise. I know Blaney was kind of mad at me because my stuff was really tight, so I do owe him an apology at some point because I think I ran us both in the wall. But I think I'm pretty pleased."

With more patience and more precision came more confidence, trusting both his car and his abilities to withstand his aggressive inputs with risks a touch more calculated.

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Through two races, that's paying off in the points standings, leaving Hocevar and his No. 77 Spire Motorsports team fourth in the driver standings, 51 points behind series leader Tyler Reddick heading into next Sunday's race at Circuit of The Americas (3:30 p.m. ET, FOX, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, HBO Max).