Carson Hocevar reacts to blowing tire while leading hometown race at Michigan

In front of a packed hometown crowd at Michigan International Speedway, Carson Hocevar came up short of the win. Leading 32 laps today, the sophomore NASCAR Cup Series driver looked poised to win his first career race. It wasn’t meant to be.

Carson Hocevar was going to be short on fuel, and he needed a late caution to give him a shot at the win. It never came. Instead, the left rear tire went flat on his No. 77 Chevrolet, and he had to take it down pit road late. As a result, he finished a lap down in P29.

While the finish wasn’t what he wanted, the performance was perhaps the best of his career. He earned stage points in both stages and led a lot of laps. Following up his P2 finish at Nashville with a race like today is exactly what he needed to do.

After the finish, Hocevar was asked about the end of the race. He talked about the fuel and tire issues that ended his run for the win.

“I mean, it was going to be near impossible to save four laps around this place for how fast we were going,’ Hocevar said, via Bob Pockrass of FOX Sports. “So, you kind of knew that, but you wanted to save a little bit. The only reason we were saving, it wasn’t to save to make it, it was obviously to save to just try and keep our pit stop short. Because we needed that yellow so if the yellow came out, we needed the best opportunity we could. So, yeah, I mean, we were doing everything we could.”

Carson Hocevar happy flat tire didn’t ‘hurt’

As for his tire, Carson Hocevar is just happy that he didn’t wreck the car. Spire Motorsports built him a great piece and now they can take it back to the shop and use it again.

“No, I mean, maybe like a half a lap earlier, but I’m just, I’m obviously really thankful it happened down the backstretch off two because it had a moment in the late exit of two, and I’m like, ‘That’s not right’ and then it sat down,” Hocevar said. “I’ve never really had a flat at these high-speed tracks. So, I’m glad I got that feeling without it hurting, you know, or just being a big moment, especially for how good that car was, I’m glad we didn’t tear it up.”

We saw how hard of a hit you can take at Michigan early on in the race. Alex Bowman hit the outside wall head-on after getting caught up in trouble in the back of the pack after a restart. Carson Hocevar managed to limp away down pit road without slamming his front or back end into anything.

Denny Hamlin went on to win the race today at Michigan. He had more fuel than his competitors after sacrificing track position for more gas. This is his third win of the season. He’s 44 years old. With more than 700 starts, Hamlin shows no signs of slowing down.