Carson Hocevar dominates final stage for Rackley Roofing 200 win

Reading the box score, it might seem like Carson Hocevar took the lead with forty laps remaining and cruised to his second win of the 2023 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series season, but his night in Nashville Superspeedway was a bit more stressful than that.

While he indeed took the lead from Corey Heim, it came on the heels of a restart following Dean Thompson‘s crash after spinning into the wall. After fending off pole-sitter Nick Sanchez and Zane Smith for the next thirty laps, their challenges became more of a concern after Stewart Friesen tapped Grant Enfinger and they spun through the grass with eight laps remaining.

Although too far out to force overtime, Hocevar still had to hang on for three more laps and ultimately pulled it off. The victory is his second of 2023 after claiming Texas in April, that also coming with a frantic final restart.

Smith settled for second, but it still provided him his first top ten since Kansas in early May.

“We just simply just struggled from first to second, but we were really good from third to fourth. That’s all there was to it,” said Smith. “I was honestly kind of bummed out when the caution came out there, because I knew we struggled all day on restarts. We had a really fast Speedco Ford. Just wish we had the clean air there. It’s been a rough four to five weeks. So to leave here with a stage win and being able to contend all night long, we should all be pretty proud.”

Reigning ARCA Menards Series West champion Jake Drew finished twelfth in his Truck début, while defending NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series national champ Layne Riggs was twenty-seventh in his first Truck race in a Chevrolet.

Thompson and Lawless Alan had difficult days, the former later being summoned to the NASCAR hauler for not reporting to the infield care centre after his wreck. Alan was collected in a lap five crash with Hailie Deegan, prompting him to call her “talentless” and added it was “not the first time she wrecked me. She does it to fucking everybody,” before hitting the wall five laps later.

Race results