BROOKLYN, Mich. — With 20 laps to go, the fight for the win appeared to be between Carson Hocevar and William Byron.
Instead, both left Michigan International Speedway heartbroken outside the top 25 after Sunday‘s FireKeepers Casino 400. Hocevar‘s left-rear tire went flat at Lap 182 while trying to conserve fuel from the lead. In his own fuel save, Byron lost the top spot to Denny Hamlin with four laps remaining before Byron‘s tank ran dry with just one-and-a-half laps remaining, allowing Hamlin to escape with the win.
MORE: Race results | At-track photos: Michigan
Coming off a career-best second-place finish at Nashville last week, Hocevar led a career-high 32 laps Sunday at Michigan, his home track. But the No. 77 Spire Motorsports team knew they were short on fuel in the final run, expecting to run out with approximately four laps remaining.
Hocevar and Co. never got to see that play out. The flat tire threw them to pit road instead with 18 laps remaining, ending any shot for the sophomore to celebrate his first career win at home and relegating him to 29th in the final rundown.
“I felt like I screwed us a little bit by going a little early to put us in that fuel number,” Hocevar said. “You lose the race both ways, right? You either run out (or this). But they should probably go to bed a little bit (easier) that somehow, some way we ran something over or something in the universe wanted a left-rear flat.”
Hocevar has had his fair share of near misses in pursuit of his inaugural trip to Victory Lane in the Cup Series. He‘s spent plenty of time in contention this season with fast cars, but results haven‘t always rewarded him. That isn‘t new territory for the Portage, Michigan, native.
“Just like I‘m reliving the Truck Series days, but you’re doing it in front of a big stage,” Hocevar said. “And then, the difference is like I felt like I was throwing them away. Now, they’re getting taken away — I use that term loosely — but just things out of our control.
“It’s such a double-edged sword, right? There’s nothing I could go back and just be like, we could be better in this moment to win the race or not. There’s so many moments where we’re just like, ‘Man, I just wish we had that opportunity to see if we even would have had a fighting shot at the end at these races.‘ I’d much rather be in these spots and have these things happening than just slow.”
Byron remains the NASCAR Cup Series points leader leaving Michigan, but a 28th-place finish nerfed what could have been an exceptional points day for the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports driver.
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Byron was in a better position to make it to the end than Hocevar, needing to save roughly two laps of fuel. He was able to conserve some while trailing Hocevar, but the hot pursuit applied by Hamlin forced Byron to forget about saving and instead use everything had left to fend off the No. 11 Toyota.
“When I was in second, it was like, ‘OK, I can save here a little bit and maybe manage,‘” Byron told NASCAR.com. “And then when I got the lead with the 77‘s flat, then it was like, ‘OK, I’m in a really good spot to manage because I can just kind of pace it here.‘ And it just didn’t pan out that way. Just burning too much fuel up towards the front, and those guys had been further back and able to take more (gas during pit stops).”
Unlike the leaders, Hamlin never had to worry about saving fuel. His No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota had plenty, according to crew chief Chris Gayle, allowing Hamlin to keep his right foot planted on the gas pedal.
“He was pushing my pace, and I was having to run hard, and he had the benefit of the draft,” Byron said. “I’ll just have to think about it obviously, but it was just trying to manage both, which was difficult to do, but I thought we‘re doing an OK job of it.”
Hamlin, now a 57-time winner in the Cup Series, knew he had the upper hand on fuel but “never will assume someone‘s going to run out” of fuel. Understanding Byron was going to go all-out to defend the lead — and willing to run out trying — Hamlin knew he needed to use every trick in his arsenal to muster his way past the No. 24 car.
“At the time, I had the upper hand on him with the car, the lines that I was able to run versus the lines he was able to run,” Hamlin said. “And I just saw some vulnerabilities with his car that, after running right on his bumper for 10 laps, I was able to pick him apart or pick the car apart and capitalize on this one spot of the track that I thought that I could get him. It’s a cat-and-mouse game.”