Carson Hocevar credits tow truck driver for saving his race at Talladega

Carson Hocevar went behind the wall during the red flag with five laps to go in last weekend's NASCAR Cup event at Talladega, and somehow returned to the race without losing a single lap.

Now, teams cannot work on cars under the red flag, but the Spire Motorsports team still managed to get the No. 77 back into the race in time for the final restart, where they battled back to an impressive top ten finish. According to Hocevar, an 'MVP' tow truck driver played a key role in it all.

Hocevar was pushing Joey Logano in the outside lane when they got tangled up in the tri-oval, and Hocevar went spinning wildly down the frontstretch as 15 cars piled together.

The race was immediately red-flagged after Logano went upside down, and Hocevar tried to limp his own car back to the pits. However, he simply couldn't make it, coming to a stop on the backstretch as he struggled to make it turn with four flat tires.

Soon after is when the tow truck arrived on the scene, quickly getting Hocevar back to the pits as the team prepared to change the tires and make any other necessary repairs.

"The tow truck driver was a massive MVP of the situation," said Hocevar in a recent live stream." So, I'm like down the backstretch, right? I'm four flat tires, can't go anywhere, I'm in the wall. Normally, they come up to the door and they're like, 'are you okay, are you all right, what's the plan, are you okay, do you need anything, what do you have?' None of that was asked, nothing. All of a sudden the tow truck driver runs over. He goes, 'hey man, I'm going to keep you in the race. ' And I was like, 'sounds good. Go.' And he's like, 'all right.'

"He takes off, gets in the truck, slams the door. And we start going 45mph on the tow truck. We pass cars that are trying to limp to pit road. We're passing cars on the way to pit road. And so the tow truck driver goes to drop it (back in the garage), then my crew guys are like, 'hey can you pick it up real quick? Can you pick it up?' So then he picks it back up so they can look at the damage and then he sets it back down.

"The tow truck driver sets me back down and he's just like this (thumbs up), I did good. And I was like (thumbs up), yes, you did. I need to find this tow truck guy's name. I don't know if it's legal or not, but I was like, that dude needs a couple hundred bucks or something, or at least a gift card."

Watching via the onboard camera, once the tow truck found Hocevar on the backstretch, they got it hooked up and rolling within roughly 60 seconds. Even the team commented on the radio: "He's helping us out, he's hauling ass."

Just as Hocevar said, you can see the speeding tow truck on the No. 77's onboard blow by Shane van Gisbergen (as well as the parked field) on its way back to the DVP area behind the wall. "He's digging," remarked the team as they watched it all unfold.

The team had plenty of time to prepare under the red flag, quickly getting Hocevar ready to rejoin the race and on the lead lap in 13th. In the final two-lap dash, he drove up to sixth for a solid top ten finish, salvaging a great result from the day. The cars that fell out of the race in the same wreck finished anywhere between 24th and 34th.

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- The Motorsport.com Team