Hocevar Takes Victory: Heart of America 200 recap

Jake Garcia brought the field to green on a warm Saturday night at Kansas Speedway for the 25th running of the Heart of America 200.

The start of the race saw a ton of chaos, with a questionable start, and cars fanning out four-wide farther back in the field.

To no one’s surprise, the race’s first caution came out a few laps later, courtesy of Dawson Sutton, who spun while attempting to bring his truck to pit road.

NASCAR officials ruled the caution as an intentional spin, penalizing Sutton by holding him on pit road for two laps. Additionally, officials held defending series champion Ty Majeski for one lap for double-fueling his truck.

Back under green-flag conditions, Corey Heim regained the lead as the rest of the field battled for position behind him.

With eight laps to go in the first stage, caution number two came out when Luke Baldwin made contact with the wall. On the restart, the battle for the top spot raged on with just three laps remaining. Ultimately, no one was a match for Heim, who ran away with the stage win.

Stage two got underway, with Heim easily recapturing his lead. Meanwhile, Cup Series regular Carson Hocevar hungrily chased after Heim for the top spot.

The caution flag flew once again with a little under 10 laps remaining in the second stage when Cody Dennison went spinning.

Hocevar finally grabbed the lead on the restart, but Grant Enfinger made it no easy feat. As the laps wound down, the two continued to battle for the stage win with Layne Riggs joining the mix. Hocevar held off both Enfinger and Riggs for the stage win.

The field took the green for the final stage with Hocevar holding off Riggs to reclaim his lead. As the laps passed by, stage one winner Corey Heim began to slowly march his way back towards the front of the field after having a pit gun break on his last pit stop.

With half of a stage remaining, Layne Riggs came to battle with Grant Enfinger for second place, allowing Hocevar to stretch his lead over them.

During the green-flag pit cycle, the sixth caution flag flew when Frankie Muniz went spinning into the grass.

The restart brought new players into the mix as the likes of William Byron and Stewart Friesen now challenging Hocevar.

However, Hocevar managed to nab the #1 spot. Meanwhile, NASCAR penalized Corey Heim and teammate Toni Breidinger for restart violations, forcing the Tricon teammates into the pits for a pass-through penalty.

With 25 to go, Bayley Currey and Connor Mosack made contact, prompting the caution flag to come out for the seventh and final time.

When the green flag flew once again, William Byron started to hunt down Hocevar, using every magic trick in his deck of cards to conjure up a win.

Layne Riggs managed to slip past Byron and used everything he had to try and catch Hocevar, even nearly wrecking him out on the final lap, but it was to no avail.

Carson Hocevar captured the win with Riggs finishing second. Unfortunately for Riggs, the finish didn’t hold as his 38 truck failed post-race inspection with a bed cover issue.

For full results, click here.

(Featured image credits: @spiremotorsports on Instagram)