Carson Hocevar scored the biggest win of his Super Late Model career, and arguably amongst the biggest overall in a decade of racing, in the Battle at Berlin 250.
It was tremendous for several reasons:
Berlin Raceway is his home track, where he is a former track champion
It paid $40,000-to-win
The victory came against heavyweights Erik Jones and Bubba Pollard in a spectacular duel
The race was decided by a 16-lap duel off the final timed competition caution. Hocevar retook the lead from Jones and held them both off by the end of the race. Hocevar was especially proud of the accomplishment given that he was not comfortable on the McCreary tire after a decade spent racing on the more familiar Hoosier.
Winning $40,000 has a way of changing your tune.
“This so big,” Hocevar said in Victory Lane. “This car was so fun and to drive. This place is tough with this tire. I don’t think I or anybody else has enjoyed this tire since they switched to it. But if they put a race like that on, I’m going to beg for them to keep them on even if it sucks to drive.”
Hocevar set fast time but was inverted to eighth for the start but drove his way to the lead by Lap 13 anyway. Pollard first took the lead on Lap 93 and held it until Lap 109 when Hocevar jumped back up front on a restart with a daring three-wide pass on Pollard and Jones.
The key to victory, according to Hocevar, was holding off Pollard for second leading to the final competition caution. That gave him the front row with Jones and he capitalized.
“Racing with Erik and Bubba, obviously, those guys are super, super talented and their cars are really good,” Hocevar said. “I thought I burned the right rear clean off of it there and didn’t think we were going to get a shot.
“I was just trying to hold off Bubba as long as I could to maybe keep myself on the front row for the last restart. When he gave me the bottom, I was shocked because I was like, ‘maybe if I could just slide up and take his line away, I might be able to clear him,’ and that’s exactly what happened.”
Jones just didn’t have the same car at the end.
“I was just too tight,” Jones explained. “We were kind of third there all day to Bubba and Carson and needed to make an adjustment, just got too tight at the end. You know, I hate it didn’t work out. I got the lead there, and I was trying to hold it just to have the restart. Just didn’t work out. Yeah, close, and it’s hard to be that close but clean car, and that’s all you can ask for.”
For Pollard, who was attempting to become the first driver to sweep both the Money in the Bank and Battle at Berlin in the same season, he fought the same issue that Jones did.
“I was just tight there on that last run,” Pollard said. “Just didn’t adjust enough. Kind of got comfortable and didn’t adjust enough. That’s all it was. The top three right there were pretty equal all night. I knew Erik was riding right there in that middle part of the race. We were going to go get tires. I just didn’t adjust and it cost us the night. All in all, good race.”
Michael Atwell, Kole Raz, Evan Shotko, Brian Campbell, Chase Burda, Jeremy Doss and Treyten Lapcevich completed the top-10 in the second of the two annual UARA Super Late Model races at the Marne, Michigan bullring.
Matt Weaver is the owner and founder of Short Track Scene. Weaver grew up in the sport, having raced himself before becoming a reporter in college at the University of South Alabama. He also has extensive experience covering NASCAR, IndyCar and Dirt Sprint Cars.
