Carson Hocevar had just one car standing between him and a pole position at his home track, Michigan International Speedway. Unfortunately, for the Portage, MI, native, that one car remaining was being driven by one of the best drivers in NASCAR Cup Series history, Denny Hamlin.
Hamlin, who suffered a flat tire and subsequent underbody damage to his car in Saturday’s Cup Series practice session, showed no ill effects in qualifying, as he rocketed around the 2-mile track in 36.901 seconds, a lap that equated to a 195.117 mph average speed.
The lap was fast enough, by 0.018 seconds, to bump Hocevar from the pole position.
Starting Lineup: 2026 FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan
While Hocevar was crushed, Hamlin was stunned, himself. He never dreamt that he’d have a shot at the pole after the damage sustained to the underbody of his car in practice.
“They did a great job, accounting for the damage on the bottom side. They rebalanced it, felt like they did a good job. I mean, it was a handful. It was all I wanted, certainly. But hats off to this whole National Debt Relief team, yeah, that was surprising,” Hamlin said.
The record books will show Hamlin as the winner of the pole for the FireKeepers Casino 400, but the driver will have to drop to the rear of the field before the green flag as his team has additional repairs that need to be made to his car’s rear diffuser.
It was the final nail in the coffin for what was a disappointing day for Hocevar at his home track. Earlier in the day, Hocevar led a race-high 65 laps in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series event, but came home third after his truck began overheating in the closing laps.
While Hocevar admits he doesn’t usually get overly emotional about qualifying, as he was just one car away from scoring a pole at his home track, he understood how badly he wanted to lead the field to green on Sunday.
“Yeah, I mean, it’s a testament to these guys. They do a really good job. They’re building really fast race cars. I would have loved to have that there,” Hocevar said, choking back the emotions. “But yeah, third in the truck race, second in Cup qualifying, so hopefully that’s just a trend there. But I would have loved that one.”
Tyler Reddick, who already has five wins to his credit this season, will start Sunday’s race from the third position, driving the No. 45 Rockstar Energy Drink Toyota, and he’ll be joined in Row two by Ty Gibbs, the driver of the No. 54 Monster Energy Drink Toyota.
Chase Briscoe, Chase Elliott, Kyle Larson, Christopher Bell, William Byron, and Erik Jones rounded out the top-10 qualifiers for Sunday’s Fire Keepers Casino 400, which is scheduled for 3:00 PM ET, and will be televised on Prime Video.
