Carson Hocevar baits Brad Keselowski into coming down closed pit road while leading at Pocono

Brad Keselowski surrendered the lead by coming down pit road during Stage 2 of Sunday’s Great American Getaway 400 at Pocono Raceway. The only problem was that pit road was closed at the time.

A truly bizarre mistake for a veteran driver to make, yes, but it appears Carson Hocevar played a role in it happening. Hocevar, running second at the time, started following Keselowski to pit road before ultimately staying out. He told his team he was intentionally trying to bait Keselowski into coming down pit road.

“It’s closed,” Hocevar’s team told him, via Jeff Gluck of The Athletic. “The red light is off. Stay out, stay out, stay out!” Hocevar responded, “Yeah, I know. I wanted to bait him. I didn’t want him to have him realize the mistake.”

Miscommunication between Brad Keselowski and his team during caution. #NASCARonPrime pic.twitter.com/AndNI4m5AW

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Somehow, it worked. Keselowski took the bait and made a race-changing mistake. He was penalized for the infraction. Keselowski’s team isn’t quite sure what happened.

“Not sure what happened there,” crew chief Jeremy Bullins said. “There was a lot of people talking about coming.”

Another costly mistake for Brad Keselowski

It’s just been that kind of season for the 2012 NASCAR Cup Series champion. He came into Sunday’s race 32nd in the points standings with five DNFs through 16 races. Keselowski and his No. 6 team have been off since the season began and outside of a top 5 run at Charlotte Motor Speedway, it’s been a struggle.

And yet, here he was, leading at “The Tricky Triangle.” Keselowski hasn’t led much this season and at the very least, the time out front could have been a boost in confidence. Instead, what followed was a surprising error.

“10-4. Heads down. Run our race here,” Keselowski told his team. “There is a good chance this comes right back to us.”

The good news is it happened with plenty of race to go. Keselowski has rebounded nicely, racing inside the top 5 nearing the end of Stage 2.