One year ago this weekend, everything took a turn for Carson Hocevar when he stepped into Corey LaJoie‘s #7 car. Fast forward to today, and he’s just nailed his best career finish at Gateway, a real feather in the cap for the whole #77 team. But let’s rewind to last year at the same track, where Hocevar ended up dead last.

A brake rotor on the #7 car gave out in stage 2, sending him into the wall and causing terminal damage after only 91 laps. This year, he made a stunning comeback, racing his #77 car to a top-10 finish, his second-best ever. Still, Hocevar couldn’t help but throw a bit of shade at NASCAR while he was at it, making a cheeky comment about the track.

Carson Hocevar has found his kind of track and car

Last year, Carson Hocevar stirred up some drama in the truck series with his aggressive bump-and-run tactics against fellow drivers, which didn’t exactly make him the most popular guy on the track. Despite the heat, his raw talent caught the eye of Spire Motorsports, earning him a full-time gig in the Cup series. It looks like he’s quickly justifying his team’s faith in him.

Even last year, he was making waves before his mishap, climbing from P26 to P16 on the same track [Gateway]. Although his Cup debut didn’t see him finish on the lead lap, he was proud of how he drove up to that point. Now, after nailing an eighth-place finish—his career-best—it seems he’s riding high, really proving his point about the track.

During his pit road interview, when Carson Hocevar was asked if the track played to his strengths against other drivers, he grinned and said, “Yeah, it’s fun! I think this shows what this team’s capable of right? This is the first time I’ve ever had a Spire car and be able to go back there again to the place. So, prove this is uh you know pretty strong and our cars are good when we can get it right and get good track positions.”

However, just subtly, Hocevar also threw in his two cents on the ongoing NASCAR horsepower debate without directly talking about it. Drivers like Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson have been pushing for more horsepower, arguing that the next-gen cars make it almost impossible to pass on most tracks, except maybe during pit stops.

DAYTONA BEACH, FLORIDA – FEBRUARY 19: Carson Hocevar, driver of the #77 Gainbridge/Zeigler Auto Group Chevrolet, enters his car for the NASCAR Cup Series Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway on February 19, 2024 in Daytona Beach, Florida. (Photo by James Gilbert/Getty Images)Since the Gateway racetrack really suited him and other drivers, Carson Hocevar decided to take a jab at NASCAR. He added, “It’s hard to tell I mean the place you can move around and do different things I feel like it’s my type of place so like I was running top one and two bottom three and four. […]I love to take a lot of inspiration of My Style Racing in there that uh that I think helped.” Christopher Bell also had good things to say about the track, noting, “They got a hidden gem here in St. Louis. Really, really cool—you can move around, you can make passes.”

Hocevar also admitted that while the track felt like a partner to him, his car did give him a bit of trouble at the start.

The #77 car had its ups and downs but pulled off a good P8 finish

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Starting the season with a quick exit at the Daytona 500 after just five laps, Hocevar has been in it for the long haul in the subsequent 14 races, missing only eight laps in total. “We ran as high as fourth, so it was a lot of fun,” shared Hocevar. “We lost sometime during our green flag stop because it was slow.”

His P8 finish is all the more impressive given some early car troubles. Thanks to quick work by his pit crew, they got things sorted, and he surged to the top-5. He noted, as per a Speedway Digest report, “This #77 Zeigler Auto Group Chevy team did a really good job with everything all race long. We had a really slow stop at the beginning of the race with a lug nut coming off.”

Further explaining the strategy the team employed, he added, “We caught the caution right, but then after that, our car was really good. We ran as high of fourth and we were catching third. Our lights were. off, So we were a little Slow down the pit road. That was probably the difference of getting a top-five finish or not. All-in-all, it was just a really good job by this No. 77 team.”

That P8 finish helped him climb three positions in the driver’s standings table. So far, the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season has been rather low-key in the Rookie of the Year race. Josh Berry in the #4 only just grabbed his first top-10 finish weeks ago at Darlington Raceway. Hocevar has one top-10 himself, a 10th place at Texas Motor Speedway, putting him ahead of both his Spire Motorsports teammates, rookie Zane Smith and the more seasoned Corey LaJoie.

Yet, even after his top-10 finish at the Enjoy Illinois 300, Hocevar finds himself just 5 points shy of Josh Berry, now sitting at P21 in the standings.