Hocevar is counting on the lack of practice to disrupt the other team’s rhythm and tuning.
NASCAR qualifying for Charlotte Motor Speedway’s Sunday race was adversely affected by the weather. The first Atlantic hurricane of 2026 managed to ruin the perfectly placed schedule, and even preponing the sessions by two hours didn’t work in NASCAR’s favor. While NASCAR has decided to postpone the O’Reilly race to Sunday evening, they won’t be holding any qualifying session for the race. Instead, the qualifying metric will come into play this Sunday when the driver’s lineup for the next race.
The qualifying metric is based off of two factors. The driver’s recent finish and the team’s position in the owner’s standings. These two metrics work in a 70:30 ratio to bring forward the grid positions for the drivers when the qualifying session has been cancelled. Now it might strike fear in the hearts of the top drivers who haven’t performed well in the previous race. But a certain underdog is relying on this caveat to leapfrog his finish at Charlotte and bring the best out of his first NASCAR post-season.
Carson Hocevar’s previous heroics earn him a surprise head start at Charlotte
For NASCAR, hosting Saturday’s Chase qualifying is starting to become a remote possibility. After all, the first six races of the Chase have depended on the qualifying metric to decide Sunday’s grid. While the cancellation of the session takes away the team’s ability to start from a better position.
It also strips them of the ability to tune their setup as per the track conditions. This means the teams have to rely on their earlier setups and previous year's data to tune their car. With that much uncertainty, the teams that already performed well last year can easily end up claiming a significant lead over the other unprepared teams.
Speaking about the same advantage, Carson Hocevar says in his interview, “We have been good here before. Obviously last year was superfast, so hopefully we can take advantage of that. I kind of like that there’s no practice session, so hopefully everybody can’t tune their stuff up and we can unload how we were about a year ago.”
This year Carson Hocevar will be starting from P10 on the grid for the Chase race at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Now his previous outing at Charlotte was not the best finish he has had this year. But at least with a P10 start, he can hope to turn the tide in his favor, since he is confident about his setup from the previous year.
