Heartbreak for Hocevar, Ross Chastain wins at Charlotte

Ross Chastain got to smash yet another watermelon this year, scoring the win in an overtime restart at Charlotte. His Niece Motorsports teammate, Carson Hocevar, was having a strong race and had a six-second lead in the closing laps, looking to finally get his first career Truck Series win. However, the caution came out late and caused an overtime restart. Hocevar was trying everything he could on the final restart to hold off a charging Ryan Preece, which led to him sliding up the track and making contact with Preece coming off turn two. Hocevar tried to send it going into turn three and took himself out of contention, bringing out another caution. Ross Chastain made a comment on the first overtime restart after the win.

“I hate it so much for Carson,” Chastain said to Fox Sports. “I didn’t give him the push he needed to win. Man, I’m so proud of Carson Hocevar. I’ll say that over and over. That guy’s a future star. He’s such a goofy kid, but I love him. He learns so quick.”

For Hocevar, he was left with heartache, as he once again comes short of winning. He owned up to what happened on the first overtime restart and owned up to what he did.

“A dumb*** move by myself, that’s it,” Hocevar said afterward, “It sucks. I tried really hard. I tried too hard. I didn’t get a good restart and just tried too hard. I tried to wash him up but I just crashed myself.”

On the other side of the battle was the 31-year-old veteran Ryan Preece, who has select starts under the Ford banner this season and looking for the next opportunity in his racing career. Preece was not very pleased with Carson Hocevar.

“All of you kids watching right now wanting to get to this level, don’t do that,” Preece said to the camera in his post-race interview. “Race with respect, don’t wreck the guy on the outside if you’re trying to win your first race, it doesn’t get you anywhere.”

“I race for a living and if I don’t run good, I don’t make a lot of money. So I’m pissed right now, we got two more races to try and go have some good runs, but yeah that’s just stupid. Don’t be like that.”

Preece also commented in his MRN interview with the following, “I mean, there’s one thing, I’ve raced with a lot of great race car drivers, Mike Stefanik, Ted Christopher, Reggie Ruggiero, all these guys, and if you drove like that, they kicked your ass. So it’s … no one’s teaching these kids, but somebody needs to and it’s eventually going to be me.”

When Preece was asked about talking to Hocevar about the incident, all he said was “(Expletive) no.”

Hocevar did respond to Preece’s harsh criticism saying, “I somewhat heard what he was saying on MRN, and he has every right to be mad and say what he wants, but I don’t agree with it. I think it’s just hard racing on old tires, and I made a mistake and it cost both of us. It’s just is what it is. I’m not gonna go talk.”

Grant Enfinger finished in second, John Hunter Nemechek was third, and Christian Eckes and Zane Smith rounded out the top five. Finishing out the top 10 were Tanner Gray, Kyle Busch, Chandler Smith, Stewart Friesen, and Ben Rhodes. The next race on the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series schedule is Saturday, June 4th at 1:30 pm EST at Worldwide Technology Raceway at Gateway, racing alongside the inaugural Cup race at the track.