Carson Hocevar will make his first-career NASCAR Cup Series start in this Sunday\u2019s Enjoy Illinois 300 at World Wide Technology Raceway. <\/p>\n
The 20-year-old was tapped by Spire Motorsports to fill in for Corey LaJoie and drive the No. 7 Chevrolet. LaJoie\u2019s ride came available after Hendrick Motorsports chose him to drive the No. 9 Chevrolet after NASCAR suspended<\/a> Chase Elliott for one race for intentionally wrecking Denny Hamlin during this past Monday\u2019s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.<\/p>\n Hocevar described the opportunity as a \u201cdream come true.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a dream come true regardless of whose car it is. It means the world whether you\u2019re driving the car that\u2019s first in points or the car 38th in points on Sunday,\u201d Hocevar said, via Motorsport<\/a><\/em>. \u201cThere were a lot of times [sponsor] Worldwide Express wanted me at the race track on Sunday last year and I sat there hoping one day I\u2019d get to have a driver\u2019s suit on getting to that point.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of those thoughts came to mind when I found out I\u2019d finally get to drive the car\u2026 I work really well and love everybody at Spire Motorsports. They trust me enough to drive their Sunday car.\u201d<\/p>\n Hocevar is a regular in the Craftsman Truck Series. He\u2019s recorded one win, five top 10s and four top 5s this season. He currently sits eighth in the points standings driving the No. 42 for Niece Motorsports. Additionally, Hocevar has made two starts in the Xfinity Series driving the No. 77 for Spire. He finished sixth at Darlington Raceway and eighth at Charlotte. <\/p>\n \u201cThose two races, I didn\u2019t know I was auditioning for a Sunday ride,\u201d Hocevar said.<\/p>\n Though Sunday will be Hocevar\u2019s first time on-track in the Next Gen car, he isn\u2019t as inexperienced as you\u2019d think. He said he\u2019s spent the last year-and-a-half testing it out in the Chevrolet simulator for Trackhouse Racing. <\/p>\n \u201cI do a lot of work when\u00a0Ross [Chastain]\u00a0and\u00a0Daniel [Su\u00e1rez]\u00a0can\u2019t get in, so I\u2019ve gotten to learn this car a lot,\u201d Hocevar said. \u201cFor me, I\u2019ve just wanted to drive the [real] car once, whether it was a wheel-force test or something, just to help them out. I take my role as a sim driver very seriously and I want to be as good as I can. The first thing they texted me [Wednesday] was, \u2018You finally got your wish. You can actually feel what it\u2019s like.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cI already sort of have a hint at how I\u2019d like the car to drive like\u2026 Think [that] is helping me a lot. I feel I\u2019m prepared as I can be.\u201d<\/p>\n The post Carson Hocevar reacts to making first NASCAR Cup Series start<\/a> appeared first on On3<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Carson Hocevar will make his first-career NASCAR Cup Series start in this Sunday\u2019s Enjoy Illinois…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6696\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Carson Hocevar amped up for NASCAR Cup Series opportunity<\/h2>\n