Steve Letarte dissects the critical money stop that sabotaged Carson Hocevar’s Bristol hopes

NASCAR: Cup Practice and Qualifying - Source: Imagn

Spire Motorsports driver Carson Hocevar was on course for a decent top-5 result at Bristol Motor Speedway on Sunday, April 13, until a slow final pit stop (also known as the money stop) ruined his race. Steve Letarte, who works as a consultant for Spire Motorsports, recently discussed Hocevar's slow pit stop with Jeff Burton on the NASCAR Inside The Race podcast.

Starting the race from ninth on the grid, Carson Hocevar maintained his position inside the top 10 for much of the race, even securing valuable Stage points (fifth and fourth in both stages, respectively). He even got the lead of the race briefly after Kyle Larson pitted on lap 391 from the front of the pack.

However, when Hocevar finally made his last stop on lap 441, things went horribly wrong for him as he had to stay stationary for almost 22 seconds. The problem started when the car came down from the jack on the left side, preventing tire changers from swapping the old tires for new ones. Discussing what went wrong with the pit stop, Steve Letarte shared:

"It was a 22-second stop. The right side looks good on the No. 77 Chili's machine, (the jack man) goes to the left side, boom, everything's normal, boom, car falls off the jack... What I think happens is, when he jacked the left side up, (the jack) wasn't all the way underneath the jack post. It sat there for a while and then finally (the car) spit the jack out, the car falls down." (16:35 onwards)

"I am a big fan of just going to get the known quantity, getting the brand new jack and jacking the car. Either way, 22 seconds, a lap down, eliminated the top five run for Hocevar, unfortunate situation," he added.

Despite the setback, Hocevar scored some decent points in the race (39) on his way to an 11th-place finish and moved up five spots in the drivers' standings. He now sits in the 25th spot with 157 points to his name.

Carson Hocevar is proud of his team despite missing out on the top-5 result at Bristol

Carson Hocevar has had a rough start to the 2025 Cup Series season. Apart from a second-place finish at Atlanta, he hasn't finished inside the top 10 in any of the other 9 races (excluding his fourth-place finish in the exhibition race at Bowman Gray).

Moreover, he has finished in P30 or worse in five of those races. So it's safe to say that a top-5 result at Bristol would have been a welcome positive result. However, the slow final pit stop once again dropped him outside the top-10.

After the race, Carson Hocevar shared a post on X, in which he spoke about his mixed feelings. However, he still praised the team for bringing a fast car to the race.