Hocevar fends off hard-charging Riggs for Kansas Truck Series win

Carson Hocevar survived last-lap contact from the Ford of Layne Riggs, bounced off the outside wall and half a lap later took the checkered flag to win Saturday night’s Heart of Health Care 200 at Kansas Speedway.

The victory was Hocevar’s first of the season in his second NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series start this year, his first at the 1.5-mile track and the fifth of his career.

But Hocevar had to keep the fast-closing truck of Riggs behind him. On the final lap, Riggs steered to the inside of Hocevar’s No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet, got to the left-rear quarter of the Silverado and slid up the track into Hocevar’s truck.

After the contact, both Hocevar and Riggs maintained control, and both scraped the outside wall before continuing toward the finish line. With William Byron looking on from what was then third place, Hocevar arrived 0.262 seconds ahead of Riggs, who appeared to have finished second at Kansas for the second straight time.

However, Riggs was disqualified after post-race inspection found a truck bed cover violation on his No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford, elevating Byron to second place.

“I was just hoping they would crash, but they didn’t,” said Byron, who fought a tight-handling No. 07 Spire truck as the final run progressed and finished 0.718s behind the race winner.

“I just thought I’d make it entertaining,” Hocevar quipped after climbing from his truck. “That 34 truck (Riggs) was super, super good. This truck was really good on the short runs — I didn’t think he would get to us for how far back he was, but he was super good.

“Yeah, it’s been a while since I’ve been in a finish like that where it’s been all out there. So credit to him. I know he was going for everything there.”

Riggs and third-place finisher Corey Heim lost track position on the wrong side of a cycle of green-flag pit stops midway through the final stage. Riggs recovered to challenge for the lead, while Heim incurred a penalty for an improper restart to squander his chances at victory.

“Man, I gave it my all,” Riggs said. “We were really down bad with the track position there. In the third segment, we were about to take the lead, and we did a green-flag pit stop and that really hurt us — had to come from 16th on that green-flag run to get all the way back to him.

“I got to him, got into him a little bit. We both hit the wall, and he won the race. I think he was mad at me. I think he flipped me off all the way down the frontstretch coming to the checkered. But how can you be mad when you win the race?”

With the disqualification, however, Riggs had ample reason to be disappointed.

Heim led 52 of the first 53 laps and won the first stage but lost 15 positions on pit road under caution on Lap 53 when the rear tire changer’s air gun broke. Heim charged back to fourth in the running order, but lost all his progress when the sixth caution, for Frankie Muniz’s spin into the infield grass, interrupted the cycle of green-flag stops on lap 97, trapped Heim a lap down and forced him to take a wave-around.

That’s when Hocevar, who remained on the lead lap after pitting, gained control of the race, which featured seven cautions for 33 laps. Hocevar led three times for 75 laps.

Heim did further damage to his own chances by changing lanes to the outside behind the truck of Toni Breidinger before the start/finish line on a lap 103 restart. Thwarted in his attempt to win a third straight race at Kansas, Heim charged back to third at the finish.

“Started out with that pit gun breaking — no fault to my pit crew there,” Heim said. “They did an awesome job all night. It seemed like a situational kind of deal there and then caught on the exact wrong time on the green-flag cycle.

“Had to take the wave and start from the back again and got out of line for a penalty on my part. A roller coaster kind of day today.”

Rookie Gio Ruggiero was fourth, followed by Stewart Friesen, Brandon Jones, pole winner Jake Garcia, Kaden Honeycutt, Grant Enfinger and Daniel Hemric.

RESULTS