NASCAR Texas Truck Race Results: Carson Hocevar Has First Series Win
Carson Hocevar was in front after the leaders crashed in overtime and scored his first NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series victory Saturday at Texas Motor Speedway.
MORE: Texas Truck race results
MORE: Texas Truck points
Rookie Nick Sanchez, who led 168 of the 172-lap race, dueled reigning series champion Zane Smith on the last lap when Sanchez’s truck hit Smith’s. As Sanchez tried to regain control of his vehicle, he was hit from behind by Hocevar. That contact sent Sanchez into Smith. Christian Eckes also was collected.
Hocevar’s first win came in his 59th series start.
Chase Purdy placed second. Stewart Friesen finished third. Ty Majeski was fourth. Jake Garcia completed the top five.
RICHMOND, Va. — A year after debuting a new pit stop procedure that sent over-the-wall crew members running around the front of the car to shave time, Joe Gibbs Racing has stopped doing it in races.
Whether that different style of pit stop will return remains to be seen.
“You never say never, so I wouldn’t say it’s dead,” Chris Gabehart, crew chief for Denny Hamlin, told NBC Sports about the future of the JGR pit stop procedure, “but certainly there’s been enough calls for concern to make us jump back on this.”
JGR unveiled the new pit stop in the April 2022 race at Richmond Raceway. 23XI Racing crews also performed that type of stop last year. Both Toyota teams had stopped doing it by the Atlanta race in mid-March.
The JGR-style pit stops started with all five pit crew members jumping off the pit wall in front of the car and running to their positions on the right side of the car.
Timing was critical.
The right front tire changer needed to finish first so he could lead the group around the front of the car and head to the left rear tire to change it. The right rear tire changer moved to the left front tire.
In the traditional style used by all other Cup teams, one person changed both front tires and one changed both rear tires. The rear tire changer ran around the back of the car instead of coming from the front as with the JGR style.
The new style created eye-popping pit stop times when it worked well.
Joe Gibbs Racing pit crews recorded nine-second pit stops seven times in that first race last year with the new pit stop style, the team reported. The rest of the field, using the traditional method, had five such stops.
Teams typically measure the length of a pit stop from when the car is jacked on the right side to when the jack is released on the left side on a four-tire stop. Other metrics measure the length of a pit stop based on when a car first enters its stall to when it first leaves its stall. That’s a longer period of time.
Either way, the JGR style — when run without any snafus — often proved faster. That was significant because track position is so important in Cup races.
When there were issues with the pit stop, the extra time in the pit stall cost drivers positions on the track.
“The theory is it’s a little bit faster when it’s right, but it’s two to three times as slow when it’s not,” Gabehart said of the JGR pit stop procedure. “So, you’re just trying to minimize potential error. We’re working through that as a company.”
The focus is on returning to the traditional pit stop style for the JGR and 23XI Racing teams.
“You’re not going to be perfect right away when you’re retraining muscle memory after the last 40 races of doing it one way more or less,” Gabehart said. “We’ll see.
“That’s part of the sport. Everybody’s evolving and trying to get faster every day in every way, whether that is with the race car, as a driver, with strategy, on pit road, with pit crews. That’s the nature of the beast.
“I don’t fault anyone at JGR for being aggressive and trying to get everything they can get. Right now, we’ve got to evaluate that and that’s what we’re doing.”
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Sunday’s race at Richmond marked the fifth consecutive race Chase Elliott has missed since breaking his left tibia in a snowboarding accident March 3.
Hendrick Motorsports stated March 7 that Elliott’s recovery was expected to last approximately six weeks.
“I think that’s still the target,” Jeff Gordon, vice chairman of Hendrick Motorsports said Sunday in response to a question from NBC Sports. “It’s a week-to-week thing based on his doctors and what they’re seeing and how the recovery is going.”
Josh Berry finished second Sunday at Richmond, driving in place of Elliott. Berry has driven in place of Elliott in all the races the former champion has missed except the road course event at Circuit of the Americas. Jordan Taylor drove for Elliott in that event.
A look at winners and losers from Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Richmond Raceway:
WINNERS
Kyle Larson – Frustrated several times this season (and again during Sunday’s race by a pit-road incident), Larson responded with his first win of the year.
Josh Berry – Berry spun out early in the race and appeared to be in for a long day, but the circumstances of the closing laps put him in excellent position, and he followed Hendrick Motorsports teammate Kyle Larson to the checkered flag.
Michael McDowell – Gambling on tires near the finish rewarded McDowell with a sixth-place run, his first top 10 of the year. His previous best run was 12th.
Alex Bowman – Bowman finished eighth, scoring his sixth top-10 finish in the season’s seven races.
LOSERS
Austin Cindric — Cindric was never a factor Sunday and rolled home 28th, a lap down.
AJ Allmendinger — Allmendinger has had a rough start to the season. He finished a lap behind Sunday in 27th.
Ryan Blaney — A pair of pit-road miscues damaged Blaney’s chances Sunday. He finished 26th.
RICHMOND, Va. — As Jeff Gordon watched Kyle Larson’s Victory Lane celebration Sunday night at Richmond Raceway, he smiled at how this week had gone so well for Hendrick Motorsports.
Four days after an appeal panel rescinded the 100-point and 10-playoff point penalties to the Hendrick drivers and teams, the organization reveled in its second 1-2 finish of the season.
“The timing of everything coming together this week was huge,” said Gordon, vice chairman of Hendrick Motorsports. “Then these guys stepped up, too, when they got to the racetrack. Even though we didn’t have practice or qualifying, they showed what they’re capable of today.
“Certainly off to a great start this season with William (Byron’s two) wins, now this win, Alex (Bowman) has been really, really strong week in and week out, and the No. 9 (team) has been strong.”
Larson gave Hendrick Motorsports its third win of the season (in seven races) and Josh Berry, filling in for an injured Chase Elliott, placed a career-best second. Had William Byron not been spun late in the event, Hendrick Motorsports might have had its second 1-2-3 finish of the season.
“This has historically been a really bad track for Hendrick,” Larson said. “So to have all of us run up front majority of the day, come away with a one-two finish, lead as many laps as we did between William and I, it was the best day I think Hendrick has had at Richmond in decades probably.”
Sunday marked the first time since May 2007 that Hendrick cars finished 1-2 at Richmond.
It seems the parity that was prevalent last season — with a record-tying 19 different winners — could be gone. Hendrick Motorsports has shown to be the strongest team this season, which reached the quarter mark of the regular season Sunday.
Hendrick drivers rank first (Bowman), fourth (Byron) and sixth (Larson) in the standings.
They’ve dominated at Phoenix and Richmond, which share some similarities even though they are different sized tracks. Hendrick drivers have combined to lead 68.8% of the laps run at those two tracks this year.
The series heads next to Bristol for the dirt race. While Hendrick Motorsports has not won either of the previous two dirt races there, the schedule does set up well for the next few weeks. After Bristol is Martinsville, where Byron won last spring. Then comes Talladega, where Chase Elliott won in the playoffs last year. Depending on how Elliott’s recovery goes, he could be close to returning by then.
Until he’s ready, Berry will drive the No. 9 car. Berry benefitted from pit strategy Sunday that helped him gain track position in the final stage. Still, he had to take advantage of the opportunity.
“I’ve been learning a lot,” Berry said. “There’s so much more to learn. Days like today do a lot for confidence.”
As Berry talked to the media on pit road, Gordon came by to congratulate him.
“Good job, man,” Gordon said, high-fiving and hugging Berry. “That was awesome. That must have felt good, huh?
“Yeah,” Berry said.
“You fought hard for that one.”
And so did Hendrick, not only for Sunday’s result but Wednesday’s appeal.
NASCAR penalized the Hendrick drivers and teams 100 points each and 10 playoff points for modifications to the hood louvers on each of the team’s four cars. NASCAR also suspended each team’s crew chief four races and fined them $100,000 for the infraction discovered before practice at Phoenix last month.
Hendrick appealed. The appeal panel agreed that Hendrick Motorsports violated the rule, but gave the points back while keeping the fines and suspensions in place.
“I still think we laid out enough evidence that we should have had our crew chiefs back and the money as well, but we’ll take it,” Gordon said.
Wins always help.
RICHMOND, Va. — What drivers had to say after Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Richmond Raceway:
Kyle Larson — Winner: “It’s really cool. We’ve been close to winning a couple. William (Byron) has been extremely good this year. It was going to be between probably him, the 19, us, and the 20 was really good. So just things worked out. My pit crew had a great stop. So shout-out to Brandon Johnson. He is our jackman. He just turned 30 today. Our spotter, Tyler Monn, he turned 30 today. Great day for them guys. What an awesome Hendrickcars.com Chevy. Can’t say enough about it. I got into the 99 (Suarez) on pit road there sometime in the second stage, and we were awful after that. I was hoping the damage was the reason why, but they had to calm me down a little bit and get refocused and was able to get it done. Thanks to everyone on this team, (crew chief) Cliff Daniels, for everything he does to prepare the team to be as strong as we are without him on the box. So good to get a win, and hopefully many more. … So when I was going backwards in the second stage and mad, I just needed a caution to take a break and then tell myself just to not overreact and just we still have 170-something laps left or whatever it was. It’s plenty of time to get back to the front. So our car was good enough to do that, too. Just a great day all around for Hendrick Motorsports. Great week, especially. So, yeah, a lot of significance to this week, and I’ll probably remember it now for a long time.”
MORE: Richmond Cup results, driver points
Josh Berry — Finished 2nd: “Man, this is really cool. I have to give all the credit to this NAPA team. Tom (Grey, interim crew chief), Alan (Gustafson, full-time crew chief) remotely, of course, and everybody at Hendrick Motorsports. When we got some clean track, we weren’t running bad lap times. I’m so glad they tried something different to get us there at the end. Felt like we were decent the whole time. Just getting in cleaner air. We were free to run with Kyle. Man, what a huge day. You know, to come here and start in the back, no practice, qualifying, get spun out, work through the field like that, just second place, it’s pretty cool.”
Ross Chastain — Finished 3rd: “We definitely needed more to fight for the lead. For our Jockey Chevy, it was probably more about clean air. There were better cars throughout the race that got cycled back on strategy. For our group – the 5, the 9, the 20 was probably a little better – but out of the Chevys I thought that in clean air that any of us – the 5, 9 or us – could lead. Hats off to the 5 team, Kyle, and everyone at HMS. Chevrolet keeps locking down these wins with the Bowtie. We’re proud to be part of it.”
Christopher Bell — Finished 4th: “For us, we needed it to stay green. It didn’t work out today. It was pretty disappointing. I felt like we had enough speed in our Rheem Camry to be up there all day, but I had a couple of restarts that put us in the back. We would lose spots when the yellow flags would come out, so it was just an uphill battle all day. (On the wreck with William Byron): It was a pretty standard restart with the 1 (Ross Chastain) behind you. I tried to protect from him going to the inside, and he still made it three-wide there at the last minute and there wasn’t enough room.”
Kevin Harvick — Finished 5th: “We didn’t have a very smooth day and the car didn’t really do anything that I wanted it to do to have a shot at winning, but we fought hard all day. We were definitely expecting to be a little bit better, but that’s the way it goes. … I think we definitely handled a little bit worse than we did at the last race here, but there was a lot different on the car, too.”
Michael McDowell — Finished 6th: “I think the strategy was a good call. A lot of that was our car was really good on the long run, and I think we were gonna be 15th or 16th, so you might as well go for it and see if you can’t come up with something good and it worked out. I thought it was a great call by Travis Peterson. The Love’s Ford Mustang was pretty good all day. We needed a little bit more speed on the front end and not lose so much track position early on, but the long-run speed was great. Had a couple of those runs gone a little longer, I think we would have actually been a little bit better yet, so I’m proud of everybody. Phoenix was a good race for us and this obviously being a good race, so I feel like our short track program is turning the corner, at least I hope so. I’m optimistic about that.”
Joey Logano — Finished 7th: “We had a really good car. Our Mustang was fast, maybe definitely could have won. It felt pretty good. That loose wheel set us back, but it was so early in the race we thought we could recover. We started to recover and did recover, and then we were trying to split it halfway and get the track position, but we had two untimely cautions that just didn’t work out for us. Typical Richmond it does work out, but more cautions today than typical. I thought it was a fun race. I had fun. It’s a tricky track. It’s fun. It’s one of my favorite tracks, probably my favorite track to run and manage your tires and when you run hard and all that it’s really fun for the driver. It’s probably the most fun track for the driver.”
Ty Gibbs — Finished 9th: “It has been a pretty solid start for us. The biggest thing is just minimizing mistakes. I think my team is the best and only going to get better. My pit crew did a great job today. I’m happy. My Monster Energy Toyota Camry was fast today, and I’m excited to be up there racing with those guys.”
Chase Briscoe — Finished 12th: “We were just like a 12th-place car all day. The whole day we ran between 10th and 15th and just kind of depended on restarts and pit road. That kind of determined where we would fall out. The long-run speed wasn’t probably as good as what we needed it to be, and our short-run speed was kind of just OK to kind of hang on, so for how our season has been going this was honestly a good day – just to kind of run 10th to 15th all day long and not have anything crazy happen. I’m looking forward to next week going to the dirt track, for sure.”
Aric Almirola — Finished 13th: “We struggled a little bit. I feel like this is one of my better places, and I just thought we were a little bit off of where we needed to be. We’ve got some work to do before we come back, but proud to finally get out of a race with a decent day where we didn’t have anything catastrophic happen. We didn’t have everything go perfectly, but we were able to get out of here with a race car that’s still in one piece and go forward from here. Hopefully, this is the start to turning our season around.”
Kyle Busch — Finished 14th: “We were a little bit off the mark today, but overall it was a decent day for our 3CHI Chevrolet team at Richmond Raceway. At the beginning of the race, we were just too loose and needed more grip. Randall Burnett and the guys on our team made a ton of adjustments to our car throughout the race but it was challenging to keep up with the track. Our pit crew did a great job all race so that was certainly a highlight for us today. I think we gained a few spots on each stop. We’ll rebound next week at Bristol.”
Ryan Preece — Finished 18th: “We got a top 20, but our team definitely deserved a top-10 finish. We were in it all day, and my guys made great adjustments on our stops. That final caution at the end of the race threw everything off. We only had scuffs at the end, and we were just off the pace. We lost a few spots in those final laps and were able to finish off the day 18th. Moving in the right direction and looking forward to Bristol dirt next week.”
William Byron — Finished 24th: “It looked like the 1 was inside the 20 and the 20 just overcooked the corner and had the fronts locked up and nailed us in the left rear. So I was just kind of restarting fourth there and trying to stay tight to the 9 and get a good restart. I just got tagged in the left rear. So, yeah, just a dive bomb move on the inside on his part and it is what it is. I had a great race car. The Raptor Chevrolet was awesome all day and we will just keep bringing fast race cars like that and we will get a lot more wins. It was looking like it could be another win before the caution. That’s the way it goes.”
Austin Dillon — Finished 25th: “Richmond Raceway is statistically one of my best tracks, so I wish we could have capitalized with a solid finish. … We just never got a feel for the handling of our Chevy. We started deep in the field after practice and qualifying were canceled due to inclement weather on Saturday and that put us in a hole. We made plenty of adjustments to the balance of our car during pit stops, but never got it where it needed to be, and then had a slow stop under green. We’ll do some homework before the fall race to make ourselves better. Bring on the Bristol Motor Speedway dirt race.”
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