The NASCAR Cup Series stays out West this weekend for Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and if last year’s spring race was an indication, perhaps a first-time winner is in order at the 1.5-mile desert track.
After Tyler Reddick swept the season’s first three races, Ryan Blaney was a first-time winner of sorts last weekend. He became the initial driver to keep the surging 23XI Racing star out of Victory Lane in 2026 and shifted the headlines to another organization for a change.
So what’s in store for the campaign’s fifth race?
Maybe a genuine first-timer like a year ago.
Last March, driving one of the sport’s true legendary cars, Josh Berry surprised the stock-car racing world by scoring his inaugural Cup victory and handing the Wood Brothers a second straight season with a win, following former driver Harrison Burton outdueling future Hall of Famer Kyle Busch in Daytona’s 2024 summer race.
A native of Hendersonville, Tenn., Berry played the part one season ago that Blaney reprised in Phoenix, using the No. 21 Ford to snap Christopher Bell’s hot start that also produced three straight wins — at Atlanta, COTA and Phoenix.
Oddly, the last five drivers to win in the No. 21 scored their first career victories: Elliott Sadler (2001, Bristol), Trevor Bayne (2011, Daytona 500), Blaney (2017, Pocono), Burton and Berry.
Maybe this week one of the Chevrolets belonging to Spire Motorsports, which has been a fast group thus far, provides a new winner.
Spire drivers Daniel Suarez and Michael McDowell have two wins apiece in careers that have combined for 868 starts, leaving the organization’s third driver — 23-year-old Carson Hocevar — as the only remaining hotshoe who has not taken the checkers.
However, the prevailing feeling in the NASCAR world is, “It’s coming.”
Ross Chastain has widely been regarded as the toughest driver in the Cup Series to pass, but Hocevar, a native of Portage, Mich., is definitely taking away some of those votes.
Riding 14th in the current standings with 103 points, 122 behind leader Reddick, Hocevar was strong in the first half of 2025 in search of that initial win but fizzled in the second half.
Hocevar was 30th one year ago at Vegas and 32nd the last time the series visited Nevada in October — certainly poor numbers — but he has been the focus of discussion recently because of his hard-nosed, give-no-quarter, no-apologies racing style.
“While I think we show speed and can compete up front anywhere, we proved last year we really excel at the intermediates, including the mile-and-a-halves,” said Hocevar, who has positioned himself inside the top 16 thanks to 27 stage points. “We won the pole at Texas, started on the front row at Charlotte and had good speed at Vegas last year.”
Added Hocevar, one of only two drivers to earn stage points in all four races: “They are my favorite tracks, and I am expecting to be really competitive come Sunday.”
That kind of optimism may be worth a gamble this weekend in Vegas.
–Field Level Media
