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Red-Hot Hocevar Continues Momentum with NCTS SpeedyCash.com 250 Victory at Texas Motor Speedway

by Press Release May 4, 2026 0 comments

FORT WORTH, Texas – Red-hot Carson Hocevar held off Kyle Busch and several other tough challengers in a thrilling overtime finish Friday evening to win the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series SpeedyCash.com 250 at Texas Motor Speedway.

Less than a week after earning his breakthrough NASCAR Cup Series victory at Talladega, Hocevar scored his second Truck Series victory at Texas Motor Speedway, also the site of his maiden NCTS win in April 2023. It was Hocevar’s sixth career victory in the CRAFTSMAN Truck Series.

Hocevar won Stage Two and led a race-high 76 laps in his No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevy, including the final three laps in an overtime finish shootout with Busch and rising star Kaden Honeycutt. Hocevar eventually pulled away from the pack and took the checkered flag .730 of a second ahead of second-place Busch, who with six victories is tied with Todd Bodine for the most Truck wins at the famed 1.5-mile tri-oval which is celebrating its milestone 30th anniversary in 2026.

“It’s unbelievable,” Hocevar said. “Thanks to everyone. We gotta go burn down a Chili’s (Restaurant, team sponsor) somewhere. What a fun race. We had to reverse order the 1-2 with Kyle. I watched him win a lot of Truck races when I was a kid so it’s good to put an end to his Texas streak.”

Busch, who won earlier this season at EchoPark Speedway with Hocevar second, ran near the front in his No. 7 Spire machine but never led a lap. He appeared ready to build on his track-record number of victories as the race went to a green-white-checkered finish.

“We had an eventful night,” Busch said. “We didn’t start off very well. We were really, really loose and made a lot of adjustments to get it close. When we put the last set of tires on, we were really fast, felt really good. I was struggling with grip all night long, but (crew chief) Brian (Pattie) and the guys made a lot of good calls to get us dialed back in.

“It would have been nice to be in Victory Lane, but it’s good to have a teammate in there and have him get his shot. I got one, he got one, so now we’re even there.”

Honeycutt, a native of Aledo, Texas, finished third and led three laps in the No. 11 TRICON Garage machine. Honeycutt has a longstanding promise to go into the grandstands and have a beer to celebrate with fans when he earns his first victory. As Honeycutt challenged for the victory late in the race, a large contingent of fans gathered to greet him just in case he pulled it off at his home track.

“It’s disappointing, for sure,” Honeycutt said. “I have to figure out how to win these races. There’s no other excuse for it. When I got to the lead, I didn’t protect it the right way with Carson and then did the same thing with Kyle later. Thanks to the 11 crew for giving me a great truck. I’ve just gotta figure out how to win these races and that’s all there is to it.”

Ben Rhodes, the Machinery Auctioneers & Byrd Oilfield Services Qualifying Pole Award winner, led every lap to win the first stage in his ThorSport Racing No. 99 machine. He challenged late in the race, but eventually finished fifth.

Layne Riggs also appeared to have one of the fastest trucks, but after leading six laps of Stage Two he needed to pit with five to go in Stage One for a rear window issue on his No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford. Riggs was able to rally after the setback, working his way from back to front two times in the race and managing to finish sixth.

Two late cautions extended the race nearly an hour. With 11 laps to go, Stewart Friesen lost control of his Toyota coming off Turn 4 and narrowly missed colliding with Grant Enfinger along the frontstretch. That incident brought out the red flag and set up a five-lap shootout for the victory.

Just two laps later, Conner Jones, Justin Haley and Jake Garcia were collected in a crash off Turn 4 with three laps to go that also resulted in a red flag situation to clean up the track, ultimately setting up the overtime finish.

Source: Texas Motor Speedway

Photo Credit: Harold Hinson Photography