Carson Hocevar saved his best lap for last as he edged teammate Daniel Suarez and claimed the Busch Light Pole Award for the Würth 400 at Texas Motor Speedway on Saturday, May 2.
The event’s starting lineup was determined through a single-car, single-lap qualifying format. In this format, all 38 competitors vying for 38 starting spots cycled around Texas Motor Speedway once to post the fastest lap amongst one another. The competitor who posted the fastest single lap was awarded the pole position.
During Saturday’s qualifying session, Hocevar, who was the 22nd-fastest competitor during Saturday’s practice session and was the 38th and final competitor to qualify, clocked in a single-qualifying lap at 191.340 mph in 28.222 seconds. Hocevar’s lap was enough to knock his Spire Motorsports teammate Daniel Suarez off the top of the qualifying chart and claim his first first-place starting spot of the 2026 season by 0.003 seconds.
With the pole, Hocevar, a 23-year-old native of Portage, Michigan, and driver of the No. 77 Spectrum/Spire Motorsports Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 entry, recorded his second NASCAR Cup Series career pole for his 92nd series start, as his first and previous pole occurred at Texas a year ago. He also recorded the third-ever pole for Spire Motorsports and the second of the 2026 season for the Chevrolet manufacturer.
Ironically, Hocevar became the first competitor to back up a first Cup career victory with a pole for a next-scheduled event since Chase Briscoe achieved the previous feat between his first Cup victory at Phoenix Raceway, followed by a pole at EchoPark Speedway in March 2022. Having won Friday night’s Craftsman Truck Series event, Hocevar will attempt to double down with two NASCAR national touring series victories in the same weekend for the first time as he strives for a second consecutive Cup victory for Sunday’s main event.
“It feels pretty good right now,” Hocevar said. “It’s so awesome. I was watching 2008 when Dale [Earnhardt] Jr. got the pole here and I was watching that footage before and I knew we were going out last.” He continued, “I was like, man, I really wanna get the pole again and be the last car and get it. I didn’t expect to steal it from our teammate, but it’s just the coolest thing when I was a fan, for sure, when the last car goes out and steals at the last second. A testament to all the Spire [Motorsports] guys, though. This is a front row; this is a team effort here. Two cars on the front row right after a win. Hopefully, we can do it at a non-superspeedway right now.”
Hocevar will share the front row with teammate Daniel Suarez, the latter of whom clocked in the second-fastest single-lap qualifying run at 191.320 mph in 28.225 seconds. For Suarez, this marks his first time starting on the front row for an upcoming Cup event since he started on pole position at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course in August 2023.
Chris Buescher, Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe will start in the top five, respectively. Kyle Busch, Christopher Bell, Tyler Reddick, Alex Bowman and Ty Gibbs completed the top-10 starting grid, respectively.
Notably, William Byron, who was the fastest competitor in practice, will start in 15th place while Joey Logano, the reigning winner at Texas, will start in 23rd place.
In addition, Bubba Wallace and Austin Dillon were the only two competitors who were unable to post a qualifying lap. Wallace will start in 37th place in a backup car after he wrecked his primary car during practice. Dillon will start at the tail end of the field in 38th place due to an engine failure that also occurred in practice.
With 38 competitors vying for 38 starting spots, all made the main event.
Texas – Qualifying Position, Best Speed, Best Time:
- Carson Hocevar, 191.340 mph, 28.222 seconds
- Daniel Suarez, 191.320 mph, 28.225 seconds
- Chris Buescher, 190.981 mph, 28.275 seconds
- Denny Hamlin, 190.786 mph, 28.304 seconds
- Chase Briscoe, 190.786 mph, 28.304 seconds
- Kyle Busch, 190.611 mph, 28.330 seconds
- Christopher Bell, 190.456 mph, 28.353 seconds
- Tyler Reddick, 190.416 mph, 28.359 seconds
- Alex Bowman, 180.382 mph, 28.364 seconds
- Ty Gibbs, 190.168 mph, 28.396 seconds
- Kyle Larson, 190.067 mph, 28.411 seconds
- Connor Zilisch, 189.940 mph, 28.430 seconds
- Austin Cindric, 189.860 mph, 28.442 seconds
- Chase Elliott, 189.780 mph, 28.454 seconds
- William Byron, 189.693 mph, 28.467 seconds
- Ross Chastain, 189.427 mph, 28.507 seconds
- Corey Heim, 189.341 mph, 28.520 seconds
- Riley Herbst, 189.228 mph, 28.537 seconds
- Michael McDowell, 189.155 mph, 28.548 seconds
- Ryan Preece, 189.129 mph, 28.552 seconds
- Erik Jones, 188.950 mph, 28.579 seconds
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr., 188.772 mph, 28.606 seconds
- Joey Logano, 188.692 mph, 28.618 seconds
- Josh Berry, 188.686 mph, 28.619 seconds
- Brad Keselowski, 188.442 mph, 28.656 seconds
- AJ Allmendinger, 188.403 mph, 28.662 seconds
- Cole Custer, 188.311 mph, 28.676 seconds
- Noah Gragson, 188.193 mph, 28.694 seconds
- Cody Ware, 187.983 mph, 28.726 seconds
- Shane van Gisbergen, 187.905 mph, 28.738 seconds
- Ryan Blaney, 187.800 mph, 28.754 seconds
- Todd Gilliland, 187.682 mph, 28.772 seconds
- John Hunter Nemechek, 187.669 mph, 28.774 seconds
- Zane Smith, 187.669 mph, 28.774 seconds
- Ty Dillon, 185.350 mph, 29.134 seconds
- Chad Finchum, 176.396 mph, 30.613 seconds
- Bubba Wallace, 0.000 mph, 0.000 seconds
- Austin Dillon, 0.000 mph, 0.000 seconds
The 2026 Würth 400 at Texas Motor Speedway is scheduled to occur on Sunday, May 3, and air at 3:30 p.m. ET on FS1, PRN Radio, SiriusXM and HBO MAX.
