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Carson Hocevar makes incredible 'save of the year' at Pocono Raceway

Nick Profile Picby:Nick Geddes•06/22/25•

NickGeddesNews

Carson Hocevar
Randy Sartin-Imagn Images

Carson Hocevar‘s Great American Getaway 400 at Pocono Raceway is off to an eventful start. Hocevar started third and nearly went for a spin on Lap 18.

Hocevar got sideways off Turn 3 and clipped the outside wall. He looked to have lost it, but made what Dale Earnhardt Jr. called on the Prime Video broadcast “the best save of the year.”

It might be, and it was much needed for Hocevar. That could have ended or at the very least, impacted his race in a negative way. Hocevar can’t afford to have a bad run, sitting outside the playoff cutline. In fact, he’s essentially in must-win mode to clinch his spot in the 16-car postseason field. Sunday is a good opportunity to do that after some close calls at EchoPark Speedway (Atlanta) and Nashville Superspeedway.

“Our car is really fast and back to what I feel comfortable at is turning left more often than not,” Hocevar said before the race. “Our car’s fast, we’re up front, hopefully, we’ll just keep it there.”

Carson Hocevar preparing for Ricky Stenhouse Jr. payback

It’s also a chance for Hocevar to run a race free of controversy. Three weeks ago, at Nashville, he dumped Ricky Stenhouse Jr. He did it again last Sunday in Mexico City. Stenhouse certainly wants revenge. The scorecard is 2-0 in favor of Hocevar, and he knows payback is coming.

“The scorecard has it that I’m getting something from the 47 at some point, right?” Hocevar said. “And I think my team and everybody kind of knows that. But at the same time, it’s ideally just the 47, right? It’s not an open hunting season on the 77 because of these incidents. It’s kind of oscillated to when the 47 has a moment that he wants to take at us or take a shot, it’s just like — OK, that’s probably fair. But with everybody else, my team has reassured me that this isn’t open hunting season. We are going to race like we’ve raced; let’s just not create more enemies that we start getting shots back at us.

“But we’re still just going to go race, be aggressive and defend ourselves when we need to. But this is, unfortunately, now a 2-0 scorecard. I’ve been a fan of the sport for a long time. You know the game; you’ve seen it and everything. But we just go race.”