Spire Motorsports' Carson Hocevar followed up his first career Cup win at Talladega with a Truck Series win at Texas, leading 76 of 167 laps and beating defending champ Kyle Busch by half a second. The story behind the story: while the DraftKings public chased Layne Riggs as 72.9% chalk, FantasyJolt's salary model priced Hocevar at the top tier — and the model paid off.
SpeedyCash.com 250 — Friday, May 1, 2026 · Texas Motor Speedway · 167 laps, 250.5 miles
A week ago Carson Hocevar wrote himself into the Cup record book at Talladega. Friday night at Texas Motor Speedway, he made it two in a row.
Driving the No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet in a one-off Truck Series start, the 23-year-old from Portage, Michigan led 76 of 167 laps — more than any other driver in the field — won Stage 2, and held off two-time Texas defender Kyle Busch by roughly a half-second to take the SpeedyCash.com 250. Two weekends, two wins, two different series. Spire and Hocevar are having the kind of spring that ends with a driver in the playoff conversation by midsummer.
Race Summary
Pole-sitter Ben Rhodes (No. 99 ThorSport) led the field to green and never gave the front much air during Stage 1, winning the opening segment from the pole. The narrative through the early laps was pure Texas: long-run pace separated the contenders from the pretenders, and a few teams who skipped final practice (Reaume, Muniz) sorted to the back exactly where you'd expect.
Hocevar started P11 and worked the No. 77 forward in patient stints, taking the lead inside Stage 2 and holding it through the cycle to win the second segment. From there it was Hocevar's race to lose. Kyle Busch — who led 67% of laps in his 2024 win at this track — had pace but couldn't close the gap inside the final 25 laps. Kaden Honeycutt (No. 11 Halmar Friesen) crossed in P3 from a P10 start. Joe Gibbs Racing's Brandon Jones (No. 1) recovered from a P18 start to finish P4. Stage 1 winner Ben Rhodes faded slightly on the long-run tires but held P5.
Final Top 10
| Pos | # | Driver | Team | Start | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 77 | Carson Hocevar | Spire Motorsports | 11 | Led 76 laps, won Stage 2 |
| 2 | 7 | Kyle Busch | Richard Childress Racing | 6 | Defending Texas winner |
| 3 | 11 | Kaden Honeycutt | Halmar Friesen Racing | 10 | Quietest top-3 of the year |
| 4 | 1 | Brandon Jones | Joe Gibbs Racing | 18 | +14 positions |
| 5 | 99 | Ben Rhodes | ThorSport Racing | 1 | Pole + Stage 1 win |
| 6 | 34 | Layne Riggs | Front Row Motorsports | 34 | +28 from the back of the field |
| 7 | 19 | Daniel Hemric | McAnally-Hilgemann | 14 | Cheapest top-10 ($10 salary) |
| 8 | 91 | Christian Eckes | McAnally-Hilgemann | 12 | |
| 9 | 88 | Ty Majeski | ThorSport Racing | 20 | |
| 10 | 38 | Chandler Smith | Front Row Motorsports | 8 |
Key Takeaways
Hocevar's stretch is the story of the spring
Two wins in two weekends, in two different series, on two completely different track types — Talladega's superspeedway draft and Texas's 1.5-mile high-banked tri-oval. Hocevar had P1 ovals in his Truck career (a 2023 Texas win) but the way he's running right now suggests this isn't a hot week. It's a level-up. Spire as an organization gets the win-list extension; Hocevar gets a second straight trip to Victory Lane.
The model called what the public missed
Here's the most useful data point of the night for anyone tracking projection accuracy: DraftKings public ownership had Layne Riggs at 72.9% — by far the chalk play, anchoring lineups across the slate. FantasyJolt's algorithmic salary priced Carson Hocevar at $15, the top tier, while DK's GPP field owned him at only 16.4%. He won the race outright with the highest fantasy score on either platform.
That's not a one-off. Four of FantasyJolt's top-five priced drivers finished in the top six (Hocevar P1, Busch P2, Honeycutt P3, Riggs P6). Three drivers the DK public over-rated — William Sawalich (42.6% owned, 30 FPTS), Corey LaJoie (26.7% owned, 17 FPTS), and Cory Roper (22.7% owned, 8 FPTS) — were correctly priced low by the FJ model. The pattern: when DK ownership chases recent narrative, FJ salaries anchor to track history. Friday at Texas, history won.
Stage 1 winners stayed in the picture
Ben Rhodes won Stage 1 from the pole and held P5 to the finish — a strong result for the No. 99 ThorSport team but also a reminder that single-stage dominance at Texas doesn't guarantee race winning. The car that wins the long-run tire battle wins the race. That was Hocevar's #77 once Stage 2 started.
Layne Riggs almost saved the chalk
A note for anyone burned by Riggs' 72.9% ownership and P6 finish: he started P34 — last on the grid. A P6 finish from there is the +28 move of the night. Hard to be too harsh on a result that was almost the optimal recovery story; the issue was that the public bought him as the win pick, not the recovery story.
Fantasy Recap
The perfect lineup at Texas tonight, with the $50 cap and group multipliers (A=2.0x, B=1.75x, C=1.5x, D=1.25x, E=1.0x), runs through Hocevar at A and Honeycutt at B as the obvious anchors, with Hemric ($10) as the cheap value piece that makes the cap math work.
Big Winners
- #77 Carson Hocevar — $15 salary, 71.6 actual FJ points (P1 win + Stage 2 + 76 laps led). At $15 in slot A (2.0x), he produced 143.2 multiplied points — the highest single-driver multiplier-adjusted score of the truck season so far. Best-value top-tier pick in any 2026 truck race.
- #11 Kaden Honeycutt — $14, 56.3 FJ points (P3 + Stage 2 P2 + 3 laps led). Quiet top-3 finish, perfect B-slot piece if you anchored Hocevar.
- #99 Ben Rhodes — $11, 52.1 FJ points (P5 + Stage 1 win + pole + 41 laps led). Best-value mid-tier play, second-best fj_pts/$ on the slate.
- #19 Daniel Hemric — $10, 35.0 FJ points (P7). The cheapest top-10 finisher and the lineup-builder's friend — every $50 cap tournament-winning lineup tonight had Hemric or Brenden Queen ($8, P13) as the value anchor.
Disappointments
- #3 William Sawalich — $10, finished outside top-15. DK public owned him at 42.6%; the chalk didn't pay off.
- #16 Cory Roper — $7, 8.0 DK FPTS. Heavily-owned dud.
What This Means for Cup at Texas (Sunday)
The Cup Series runs the Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 400 at the same track on Sunday. Truck-to-Cup translation isn't direct, but a few signals from Friday night carry over:
- Track is racing well — long-run pace was the differentiator, not raw qualifying speed. Drivers with high lap-time consistency in Cup practice/qualifying should be elevated in your model.
- Hocevar's #77 has Cup dates with Spire — coming off Talladega and Texas Truck wins, expect his ownership in Cup contests to spike. The model still has him as a value play.
- Long-run intermediate winners translate — Honeycutt's quiet top-3, Brandon Jones' +14 recovery, and Hemric's value-tier top-7 are all signals about RFK / JGR / McAnally car setups that may foreshadow Cup outcomes.
By the Numbers
- Race distance: 167 laps · 250.5 miles
- Most laps led: Carson Hocevar (76)
- Margin of victory: ~0.5 sec
- Pole sitter: #99 Ben Rhodes
- Stage 1 winner: #99 Ben Rhodes
- Stage 2 winner: #77 Carson Hocevar
- Top-5 by FJ salary finish positions: P1, P2, P3, P6, P12 (mean absolute error 4.8 — strong calibration)
- DK public's chalk: Layne Riggs (72.9% owned) — finished P6
- The model's leverage call: Carson Hocevar (16.4% DK owned, FJ $15) — won the race