Following Corey Heim's dominant win at Texas, the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series made the trip to Kansas Speedway on Saturday for the running of the Heart of Health Care 200, which saw Cup Series driver Carson Hocevar hold off a hard-charging Layne Riggs on the final lap to pick up his fifth career Truck Series win. After post-race inspection, it was determined that Riggs had a bed cover issue and was disqualified, dropping him to last in the field.
ThorSport Racing's Jake Garcia led the field to the green for the 134-lap race. Trouble immediately struck his teammate Ty Majeski on the opening lap when he suffered a flat tire after making contact with Hocevar. While that did not bring out the caution, a spin from Dawson Sutton on Lap 4 did, producing one of the two cautions in the opening stage. Luke Baldwin, who drives part-time for ThorSport, suffered a flat right front tire on Lap 23 to bring out the other stoppage before Heim eventually prevailed in the stage.
During the only caution of Stage 2, Heim fell to 16th following a lengthy stop due to a broken pit gun while Front Row Motorsports' Chandler Smith, who finished fifth in the opening stage, had an equipment interference penalty. Hocevar came away with the stage win.
The final stage produced two more cautions. The first one on Lap 97 happened during a green-flag pit sequence when Frankie Muniz spun trying to avoid a pitting Connor Mosack. Hocevar was barely on the lead lap at the time of the caution while several contenders like Riggs, Grant Enfinger and Kaden Honeycutt were trapped a lap down and had to take advantage of the wave around to get their laps back. The final caution on Lap 110, which involved Bayley Currey, Mosack and Smith, set the stage for a thrilling finish moments later.
NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series: Carson Hocevar prevails after thrilling final lap
Although Hocevar, who led a race-high 75 laps, appeared to have the race in hand, Riggs had other plans as he chased him down in the closing laps to set up a last-lap battle. Riggs got to Hocevar's inside and made contact with his left rear, sending both drivers up the track and into the outside wall. Both of them continued on with Hocevar hanging on for the win by 0.262 seconds. With Riggs' eventual disqualification, Cup Series points leader William Byron finished second in the Spire Motorsports No. 07 truck. Despite the lengthy pit stop earlier in the race and a restart violation on Lap 103, Heim recovered for a third-place finish.
Full Heart of Health Care 200 finishing order and points results
Heart of Health Care 200 finishing position | Driver | Points |
|---|---|---|
Winner | Carson Hocevar | 0 |
2nd | William Byron | 0 |
3rd | Corey Heim | 44 |
4th | Gio Ruggiero | 33 |
5th | Stewart Friesen | 32 |
6th | Brandon Jones | 0 |
7th | Jake Garcia | 30 |
8th | Kaden Honeycutt | 36 |
9th | Grant Enfinger | 45 |
10th | Daniel Hemric | 39 |
11th | Ben Rhodes | 30 |
12th | Matt Mills | 25 |
13th | Matt Crafton | 24 |
14th | Ty Majeski | 23 |
15th | Dawson Sutton | 22 |
16th | Tyler Ankrum | 26 |
17th | Chandler Smith | 26 |
18th | Connor Mosack | 20 |
19th | Andres Perez | 18 |
20th | Toni Breidinger | 17 |
21st | Rajah Caruth | 27 |
22nd | Cody Dennison | 15 |
23rd | Spencer Boyd | 14 |
24th | Jack Wood | 13 |
25th | Morgen Baird | 12 |
26th | Bayley Currey | 13 |
27th | Tanner Gray | 19 |
28th | Frankie Muniz | 9 |
29th | Nathan Byrd | 8 |
30th | Luke Baldwin | 7 |
31st | Layne Riggs | 6 |
With his sixth top five in the first nine races of the season, Heim remains the points leader (+64) over Smith as the series hits the halfway mark of the regular season. Heim, Smith, Daniel Hemric and Tyler Ankrum remain the only full-time drivers in the series to visit victory lane this season, putting them atop the playoff leaderboard. The next stop for the Truck Series is at North Wilkesboro Speedway for the running of the Window World 250 on Saturday, May 17 (1:30 p.m. ET, FS1, NRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Heim is the defending race winner.