By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service
Met Gala appearance is a change of pace for Carson Hocevar
WATKINS GLEN, N.Y.—Carson Hocevar traded his driver’s suit for a tux and tails for an appearance at the Met Gala in New York on Monday night.
Hocevar, 23, gained instant notoriety for a memorable post-race celebration after his first career NASCAR Cup Series victory at Talladega Superspeedway on April 26. Hocevar drove his car while sitting on the window ledge, waving to fans in the grandstands.
“It was fun,” Hocevar said of his trip to New York. “It’s a different world. I got to make my mom proud, I guess. She enjoyed that. Her two favorite channels are E! and Hallmark, so the only thing next I can do to make her proud and excited is get on the Hallmark Christmas Special.”
Apparently, Hocevar’s fame was more far-reaching than he knew.
“They called NASCAR,” he said. “They just saw Talladega and called NASCAR, and NASCAR wasn’t really sure what to do or how that all worked, but they asked me if I wanted to go.
“I got to meet a lot of cool people, people I didn’t think I would meet,” he added without giving specifics. “It was a totally different change of pace, without worrying about paint schemes and race suits.”
Chase Elliott expects SVG to elevate road course performance of entire field
When Australian Marcos Ambrose arrived on the NASCAR scene in 2006, he quickly established his superiority on road courses.
Ambrose won four NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series races at Watkins Glen International, including three in succession from 2008 through 2010. Driving for Richard Petty Motorsports, Ambrose won two NASCAR Cup Series races at the Glen, in 2011 and 2012.
As invariably happens, however, Ambrose forced the rest of the Cup Series field to improve on performance, and the gap between Ambrose and his fellow competitors narrowed considerably.
After Ambrose’s departure, Chase Elliott held sway for four years, winning seven times on road courses from 2018 through 2021, including twice at Watkins Glen.
The arrival of New Zealander Shane van Gisbergen has raised the bar even higher. SVG won his first Cup Series start on the Chicago Street Course in 2023. Last year, he won five of the six road course races on the schedule.
Elliott believes the gap between SVG and the rest of the Cup field will narrow once again.
“Yeah, I’m not sure that I have a really good overhead view of what that looks like,” Elliott said. “I’m obviously very zoned in to just my perspective of it, and I certainly feel like we, and myself in particular, have a lot of work to do to get to the performance that those guys have had.
“I think it’s there. I think we’re capable of doing that. I have no doubt, to your point, I do think he and his performance and the job that he and his team have done are going to make the rest of the field better. I think that’s just how it works.
“So, how far behind some are or aren’t or have closed that gap or not, I’m not sure. I think, for me, I still have a lot of room and work to go. But, yeah, I think it’s totally doable. I think there is no question it will make everybody better, and I hope that we’re among those that improve and can at least catch up at some point in time.”
Elliott’s first Cup victory came at the Glen in 2018, but the 2020 series champion doesn’t have much time for nostalgia as he attempts to win his third race of the season In Sunday’s Go Bowling at the Glen (3 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
“I’m not coming up here to reminisce,” Elliott said. “I’m coming up here to do a job. It certainly is a special place, but I also want to add to the success that we’ve had here. We have another opportunity to do it again this weekend.”
Former NASCAR star Kasey Kahne gets breakthrough sprint car win
Twenty-nine years after his first World of Outlaws Sprint Car start—with a distinguished NASCAR career in-between—Kasey Kahne claimed his first victory as a driver in Friday night’s Outlaws event at Williams Grove Speedway in Mechanicsburg, Pa.
Kahne has had enormous success as a World of Outlaws team owner, winning five series championships with driver Brad Sweet and one with Daryn Pittman. A victory of his own, however continued to elude him—until Friday night.
Substituting for injured Anthony Macri, Kahne held off Sheldon Haudenschild in the closing laps to seal the win on the legendary half-mile dirt track. Kahne’s first start in the World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series came at Grays Harbor Raceway in his home state of Washington on Aug. 22, 1997.
“This is crazy,” Kahne said in Victory Lane. “I couldn’t believe this would happen this weekend. Two weeks ago, I was still building my own cars to get prepared to hopefully race them later this year. Nick Macri and their whole family…
“Man, this whole Macri Motorsports team. (Crew chief) Joe Mooney, he’s exceptional on the wrenches. He worked at KKR (Kasey Kahne Racing), and he’s done so much more since then with Anthony.”
In a NASCAR Cup Series career that spanned 15 years from 2004 through 2018, Kahne won 18 races, including four Crown Jewel events—the Coca-Cola 600 three times (2006,2008 and 2012) and the Brickyard 400 (2017).
His high-water mark came in 2006 when he won six times with Ray Evernham’s fledgling Dodge team. Kahne also won races with Gillett Evernham Motorsports, Richard Petty Motorsports, Red Bull Racing and Hendrick Motorsports.
Two-time NASCAR Cup champion Kyle Larson, co-founder of the High Limit Racing sprint car series, was delighted to learn of Kahne’s victory.
“Yeah, that was awesome,” Larson said. “I was flying here, so I didn’t get to watch the race live, but I’d gotten texts from multiple people when he won and landed in time to watch his interview and just see how excited everybody was for him… the fans, himself, the team.
“Kasey Kahne’s put a lot into the sport of sprint car racing. He’s achieved everything you can achieve as an owner, so to conquer something that he’s been trying to get for a long time and been somewhat close, was cool. He was fast at Lincoln (Speedway in Abbottstown, Pa.) the other night, and then really good last night, so that was awesome.”
