Carson Hocevar Rides the 'Dente to Victory Lane at Talladega

KELSEY CHRISTMAN - STAFF WRITER

Carson Hocevar celebrates his first Cup Series win as he takes his victory lap while sitting on his window. (Sean Gardner, Getty Images, April 2026)

Talladega, AL- The NASCAR Cup Series returns to Talladega Superspeedway this weekend for the Jack Link’s 500. With qualifying rained out, Tyler Reddick starts the race on the pole with Kyle Larson joining him on the front row. 

The first round of green flag pit stops came with penalties for five teams. Denny Hamlin, Chad Finchum, and Riley Herbst were caught with speeding penalties on pit road, while Zane Smith had an uncontrolled tire and Chase Briscoe had a safety violation. Austin Cindric and Noah Gragson made contact causing Cindric to miss his pit stall and he had to come back down a second time. The rest of the stage ran cleanly for Ryan Preece to win Stage One.

On Lap 115, Bubba Wallace was pushed from the lead as he blocked a run in the middle lane from Ross Chastain, Ryan Blaney, and Joey Logano, collecting 25 cars along with him. The incident ended the race for many of the favored drivers to win this race including Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano, Kyle Larson, and William Byron. This brought out a red flag to clear the track and remove the debris.

The race returned to green for two laps before Ty Gibbs cut his right front tire on Lap 124 after significant damage from the wreck on Lap 115 and  collected Michael McDowell into the outside wall. The stage ended with Ross Chastain collecting the win.

The final stage was full of hard racing as Chris Buescher and Carson Hocevar battled for the lead with Ricky Stenhouse Jr, and Erik Jones behind them. Carson Hocevar made contact with Erik Jones and sent him spinning into the infield with seven laps to go. 

Restarting with just two laps to go, Hocevar and Buescher lined up side by side on row one, each with two Chevys behind them. Alex Bowman is able to push Hocevar through the tri-oval on the final lap as Austin Dillon, Christopher Bell, and Shane van Gisbergen wreck behind them.

Carson Hocevar continued the streak of first time winners this weekend as he raced his way to victory lane in the final lap of the Jack Link’s 500. This marks the twelfth different winner at the last twelve NASCAR Cup Series races at Talladega Superspeedway,

UP NEXT:

The NASCAR Cup Series will head to Texas Motor Speedway for the Würth 400. The race will be at 3:30 PM ET on Sunday, May 3rd, and can be found on FS1.