Carson Hocevar Immediately Competitive with Cup Veterans on Intermediates
9 months agoIn his first full-time race on a standard NASCAR Cup Series track, Carson Hocevar qualified 14th and will be the highest-starting Spire Motorsports driver in Sunday's race, although Corey LaJoie technically outqualified him but will be starting worse because he was in a more competitive group in the first round of qualifying. The 21-year-old wunderkind immediately impressed on his Cup Series debut in Gateway when he outran LaJoie in his own car when LaJoie filled in for Chase Elliott in the #9 car after his suspension and he did post a faster intermediate speed percentile, beating LaJoie 42.38 to 28.12. Admittedly, LaJoie was substantially faster than his teammate Ty Dillon while Hocevar was substantially slower than his teammate Erik Jones on intermediates so it seems likely that LaJoie and Hocevar will run about the same. It will be interesting to see which teammate ultimately comes out on top.
Source: Racing Reference
Source: Racing Reference