Carson Hocevar Benefiting from Improved Spire Speed
9 months agoCarson Hocevar starts 18th for this weekend's race at Circuit of the Americas, outqualifying fellow rookies Josh Berry and Zane Smith. However, Hocevar's teammate, Corey LaJoie, was the biggest surprise in qualifying, as LaJoie's fifth-place qualifying run was easily the best of his career. Spire is clearly getting significantly more manufacturer support from Chevrolet and might have above-average speed, although at the moment both LaJoie and Hocevar are slightly below average in speed percentile. Hocevar has never started a road course race in either the Cup or Xfinity Series before, but he won a pole at Sonoma in the Truck Series in 2022 despite breaking his tibia in a crash at Gateway the previous week. If he could deliver a bravura performance like that two years ago, it seems likely that he will run well this weekend's in COTA even if he's somewhat lacking in road course results to date.
Source: Racing Reference
Source: Racing Reference