(Photo: Wayne Riegle | The Podium Finish)

RICHMOND, Va. — Carson Hocevar ran down Ty Majeski with three laps to go on fresher tires to win Saturday’s Worldwide Express 250 at Richmond Raceway in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.

Hocevar secured his third win of the season and his career, as well as his second in the last four races.

“We’ve worked on this since the fall of last year. The second we left, we were circling this racetrack,” Hocevar said in a press conference regarding his 10th-place finish in 2022. “This was a playoff race to the first one and I hated it was. I wish it was now.

“This is a track we struggled at. To go from one extreme to the other extreme is super big.”

Though he won the race, Hocevar didn’t have the most dominant truck. Majeski, who won the pole, swept the first two staged and led 168 laps, including the first 115, and seemingly had the truck to beat.

However, during the caution at the end of Stage 2, Majeski sped on pit road and had to restart from the rear. Ben Rhodes lead on the restart but Hocevar quickly navigated past him and set sail.

Hocevar, though, had his hands full as soon as the trucks rolled off pit road. His No. 42 machine immediately had a flat tire, so he needed to pit before the race started and went to the rear for an unapproved adjustment. It took him until the end of Stage 2 to make up the lost ground, coming across the line fifth at Lap 140.

While Hocevar extended his lead, Majeski came roaring through the field on a mission. He drove all the way to second under green flag conditions and was running Hocevar down for the lead.

With 40 laps to go, Hocevar surrendered his lead to make his final stop of the day. Majeski and his No. 98 ThorSport Racing team, however, picked a different strategy. Crew chief Joe Shear Jr. instructed Majeski to stay out as long as the race stayed green.

While Majeski could make it on fuel, his tires had worn out. As the laps ticked down, Hocevar kept shaving seconds off his deficit before finally getting there with three laps to go. It took little effort to pass Majeski as Hocevar cruised to a 2.308-second victory.

(Photo: Mitchell Richtmyre | The Podium Finish)

“I could only see the 98 the last few laps,” Hocevar said. “That’s a strategy that me and Phil [Gould, crew chief] even talked about before the race and we thought it would win, but we didn’t think we were going to be the ones to do it by no means. The second he made the call [to pit], I wasn’t sure we were gonna win straight up and you take the safer bet. It’s just a full game of risk and our risk was pretty self-explanatory because our 42 truck was really fast and that much newer tires — it’s never easy by no means — but made my life a lot easier.

“I don’t think we touched the truck all night and we passed all of them. We started last — we had a flat tire the second we came off pit road. We didn’t touch a single fender and the most damage I got was when I was burning it down.”

Majeski had obvious frustration after falling short of what would’ve been his first win of the season, saying it may have been the best truck he had ever driven.

“You have trucks like this and it hurts not to win with them,” Majeski explained. “Our truck was so much faster than everybody else. Hindsight is always 20/20, obviously maybe should have pitted, but without that speeding penalty, we win it staying out, too. I’m disappointed. We’ve got to clean up the mistakes and be better, but the good news is we have fast trucks heading into the playoffs.”

Rhodes ran second for most of the event but suffered a commitment line violation during the final round of green flag pit stops. He finished 12th.

Matt DiBenedetto, Nick Sanchez and Matt Crafton secured the final three spots in the playoffs on points. They finished 17th, eighth and seventh, respectively.

Stewart Friesen was the first driver out of the playoffs. He struggled all weekend, qualifying 23rd and finishing 27th.

“We brought a dull knife to a gunfight tonight,” Friesen said.

(Photo: Mitchell Richtmyre | The Podium Finish)

Corey Heim finished third in the first two stages to clinch the 2023 regular season championship. He won the award and 15 additional playoff points despite missing a race earlier in the season due to illness.

“We’ve come such a long way from the beginning of the year. I really felt like we had a lot of progress to make in the first four or five weeks and we’ve really been improving ever since,” Heim said. “[Scott Zipadelli, crew chief] has Playoff experience with a lot of different drivers and he’s won a championship. Just learning what that is like – it’s really my first time competing in a Playoff format, so leaning on him and leaning on my crew who is also full of experience, along with a lot of people in the shop. Once again, just hats off to everyone at TRICON Garage, Toyota Racing, JBL and Safelite.”

Stage 1 Top 10 Results

1. Ty Majeski
2. Ben Rhodes
3. Corey Heim
4. Christian Eckes
5. Matt Crafton
6. Wiliam Sawalich
7. Jake Garcia
8. Chase Purdy
9. Matt Mills
10. Matt DiBenedetto

Stage 2 Top 10 Results

1. Ty Majeski
2. Ben Rhodes
3. Corey Heim
4. Christian Eckes
5. Carson Hocevar
6. Jake Garcia
7. Matt Crafton
8. William Sawalich
9. Nick Sanchez
10. Matt Mills

Worldwide Express 250 Results