NASCAR CUP SERIES
TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY POST-QUALIFYING REPORT
MAY 3, 2025
Hocevar Takes First Career Pole at Texas Motor Speedway
Team Chevy Scores Second Front-Row Sweep of 2025
TEAM CHEVY UNOFFICIAL TOP-10 STARTING LINEUP:
POS. DRIVER
1st – Carson Hocevar
2nd – William Byron
4th – Kyle Larson
5th – Michael McDowell
10th – AJ Allmendinger
- Laying down a blistering lap of 28.175 seconds, at 191.659 mph, Carson Hocevar and the No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet team topped the qualifying leaderboard to earn the pole position for tomorrow’s Würth 400 presented by LIQUI MOLY at Texas Motor Speedway. This marks Hocevar’s first career pole win in NASCAR’s premier series, coming in advance of his 56th start in the division.
- The pole – Chevrolet’s 17th all-time in the division at Texas Motor Speedway – marks the manufacturer’s sixth pole-winning effort of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season, with Hocevar becoming the fourth different driver to contribute to that feat. The Bowtie brand continues to remain undefeated in pole wins on intermediate ovals thus far this season, with Michael McDowell earning the pole at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Alex Bowman’s pole at Homestead-Miami Speedway and William Byron’s pole at Darlington Raceway.
- For the second time this season, Chevrolet has swept the front-row of the starting lineup, with the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series Texas winner, William Byron, landing second on the qualifying speed chart with a lap of 28.189 seconds, at 191.564 mph, in his No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. Joining their Team Chevy teammates in the top-10 at the conclusion of the qualifying session included Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson and Spire Motorsports’ Michael McDowell in the fourth and fifth positions, respectively, with Kaulig Racing’s AJ Allmendinger rounding out the top-10.
Chevrolet’s all-time NASCAR Cup Series statistics at Texas Motor Speedway:
Wins: 18
Poles: 17
Top-Fives: 80
Top-10s: 187
Chevrolet’s season statistics heading into the 12th NASCAR Cup Series race of the season:
Wins: 3
Poles: 6
Top-Fives: 20
Top 10s: 48
Stage Wins: 8
Carson Hocevar, No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet – Pole Win Press Conference Quotes
Carson, your first career pole here for the Cup Series and you’re the youngest to do so here at Texas Motor Speedway. Take us through your lap and how you’re feeling.
“Yeah, ultimately I didn’t think it was great through (turns) one and two. It felt so comfortable and so much grip that I’m like, man, I could have used a little bit more throttle and everything. But it felt super smooth and going through three and four, it felt really good ride quality… obviously easy wide open, cut distance. They said it was P-1 and that’s ultimately where I was like, man, it felt so good, it felt slow. So, yeah, really fortunate, really thankful to have a fast car. Obviously, fastest in practice and you want to do it again in qualifying and be able to back that up.
I think it’s really important for our group to show the strength of being able to go from practice to qualifying adjustments and where we’ve been going and be able to do that for the race, too. Just put together a whole weekend and whole race worth of adjustments, and I think we’re getting a lot closer right now.”
Looking at the ghost car and the comparisons, it looked like you made huge gains coming to the green, actually. But you really had no sense of how fast the lap really was. I mean, second fastest lap in the Next Gen era…
“Yeah, I mean, I had no idea. Normally, you can see lap time on the dash and even that didn’t work right away, so it gave me a little bit of like, I don’t know how good this was. Luckily, they told me pretty quickly and I didn’t have to wait in anticipation or anything.
But obviously, when Michael (McDowell) went out and put in a really good lap time, I felt like we were faster than him in practice. So, it gave me a little bit of confidence that, you know, our stuff was going to be as quick, if not hopefully a little quicker. To be able to back that up and for him to run a good lap, you know, gave me a little bit more confidence in our car, honestly.”
Can you do 267 of those laps tomorrow?
“I mean, the way the tires were in our long run, I hope so. Definitely, it’s going to be a lot more feasible having clean air, right? It shows up being able to run really fast lap times. I think the most important for us is being able to, you know, kind of determine our own fate a little bit more with pit road; how everybody’s going to have different agendas at times of two or none or four or whatever the case may be. Having to go all the way down pit road and having an open out is going to be super important for us of just trying to play that game and knowing that. Hopefully it clogs some other guys up and we can take advantage there.”
Carson, at every level now that we’ve seen you, you’ve just had this sense of speed where, you know, you’re just naturally fast. Where do you think this raw speed comes from? I mean, is that something that is just innate, like ability, or something you’ve had to work out to find? Where is that?
“I mean, I don’t know. It’s not a fun answer to say I don’t know, but I really don’t. There’s a lot of times where I don’t know why I’m fast or why I’m slow at times, right? You know, I feel like I study different than a lot of them. I don’t know everybody’s sense, but I use SMT a lot less. I use real video a lot more. I look at dirt videos more. I think the most footage I watched was about the 2007 to 2010 Texas races just for fun, but also to kind of just get an idea.
I don’t know… I just feel like I have a really good sense of, like, unloading. I feel like that’s why we’re always good at unloading and just getting the limit. And I think that sort of studying helps me and has fit my style of just wanting to be present and learn it as I go. There’s been times where I don’t know where my feet are supposed to be and I don’t know where my hands are supposed to be yet, and I’ll just figure out how to slow my hands down when I get there. A lot of it’s just been kind of trial by fire of not wanting to be slow, really. I’m always trying to search; be creative and never put myself in a box. I think looking at SMT or really getting too focused on the data of it puts me in that box or gets me second guessing myself. So I just know I go a lot off instinct, natural feel and visible, and just use as many senses as I can in the car. And, you know, I try to live my life as confident and as free will as I can just because I know I’m racing off instinct alone basically out there. If I’m confident myself, I feel like I’ll make confident decisions out there.”
(Michael) McDowell said that he’s a big data guy. He’s like the opposite of you, right?
“Yeah, we’re like polar opposites.. (laughs)”
He wants you to convince you that, you know, SMT is the way to go, but he has to beat you first and show that you’re faster first. Do you feel like it would mess you up so much that you just don’t want to go down that road and that’s why you’re going purely off instinct?
“Yeah, I mean, I remember when I first qualified a Cup car ever, I watched Joey Logano’s in-car. I never even worried if he was P1 or P30, he was just the only in car I could find on YouTube, and that’s all I watched. And, you know, I just listened to the visual cues, the throttle and just imagined what I would do in that. I felt like I remember running the lap and I almost had that lap running in my mind. You can’t get that from squiggly lines and fake GPS bars.
Yeah, and two, I feel like I can adapt super well or I’m so visual that I’m always nervous that if I watch someone make a mistake, that I put that in my mind. So I try to avoid even watching guys just because I don’t want to second guess myself, even if it’s wrong. I feel like I’m naturally going to be at my best when I’m just focused on me, honestly.”
How much are you going to be watching and paying attention to the Xfinity Race later today to see how the rubber builds up and how the groove is going to spread out to prepare for Sunday?
“Yeah, I mean, I’m probably going to hang out here as much as I can. I like to do that. You know, I like to just be a race fan and go watch; watch rubber and watch different things. You know, you pick up one or two things, but yeah, I definitely will watch, just to see the trends of it. But a lot of it is just me being a race fan and enjoying racing. If I pick one or two things up, that’s obviously a benefit, but I’ll just probably be a race fan watching.”
Where does this kind of old school mentality come from of listening to those visual cues and that feel and watching people react instead of the newer technology that you were saying with the fake GPS car and whatnot? Where does that kind of old school mentality come from?
“I was a bad student in school (laughs). I don’t know… Yeah, I mean, I just always have been a visual learner. I mean, even when I was like a kid racing quarter midgets, I lived watching racing. When I went home for the week off, I found a disk of quarter midget videos that I remember visibly watching. It’s just how I did it. You didn’t have that back then, right? I mean, it’s such a different world, but it’s just all I’ve ever known. And I haven’t really been slow, so I don’t want to change it. I don’t want to do anything. I know there’ll be a time at some point in my career where I can’t just go off visual or instinct, but I want to take advantage of that while I’ve got it right now.”
About General Motors
General Motors (NYSE:GM) is driving the future of transportation, leveraging advanced technology to build safer, smarter, and lower emission cars, trucks, and SUVs. GM’s Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, and GMC brands offer a broad portfolio of innovative gasoline-powered vehicles and the industry’s widest range of EVs, as we move to an all-electric future. Learn more at GM.com.
