Carson Hocevar wins the Busch Light Pole Award for the Wurth 400 at Texas Motor Speedway

3 May 2025
By Bob Francis, Managing Editor
Go Full Throttle Racing News

FORT WORTH, TEXAS — Carson Hocevar won the Pole Award for the Wurth 400 presented by LIQUI MOLY with a lap of 28.175 seconds, 191.659 mph.
This is his first pole in 56 NASCAR Cup Series races. Hocevar drives the №77 — Chili’s Ride the ‘Dente Chevrolet for Spire Motorsports.

Carson Hocevar put his №77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet on the pole for Sunday’s Würth 400 presented by Liqui Moly at Texas Motor Speedway (Image Credit: Bob Francis / GFT Digital)

For the first time in his NASCAR Cup Series career, Spire Motorsports driver Carson Hocevar will lead the field to green on Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway. (Image Credit: James Gilbert | Getty Images)

With the second fastest lap in the era of the Gen 7 car, Hocevar toured the 1.5-mile track in 28.175 seconds (191.659 mph) to edge 2023 race winner William Byron (191.564 mph) for the top starting position by 0.014 seconds.

William Byron, driver of the №24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet Raptor ZL1 Camaro qualified P2. Byron was the 2023 race winner, missing the pole by 0.014 seconds. (Image Credit: GFT Digital)

Qualifying Fast Facts Texas Motor Speedway:

Crew Chief: Lucas Lambert
This is Hocevar’s first pole in 56 NASCAR Cup Series races.
This is his first pole and fourth top-10 start in 2025.
This is his first pole in three races at Texas Motor Speedway.
William Byron (second) posted his seventh top-10 start of 2025 and his fifth in 11 races at Texas Motor Speedway.
Austin Cindric (third) posted his second top-10 start at Texas Motor Speedway. It is his seventh in 11 races this season.
Riley Herbst (21st) was the fastest qualifying rookie.

“Having the cowboy outfit — what better place to be on the pole,” Hocevar said. “I’m normally so hard on myself, and I didn’t think I nailed that lap at all, but I’m super proud of this team.

“I’m so proud, because I’ve never had the №1 pit stall, and I’ve had a lot of issues with pit road and we’ve had a lot of bad luck. So I finally get the №1 pit stall and I’m pumped about that.”

“Obviously, with Michael (McDowell) going out and putting up a really good lap time, I felt like we were faster than him in practice, and that gave me a little bit of confidence that our stuff was going to be as quick, if not hopefully a little quicker,” Hocevar said.