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Carson Hocevar Turns Fastest Lap in Battle at Berlin Qualifying; Erik Jones on Pole After Invert

NASCAR star Carson Hocevar paced qualifying for Wednesday night's Battle at Berlin 250, but Erik Jones will start from the pole after the top-eight were inverted after the session.

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hero image for Carson Hocevar Turns Fastest Lap in Battle at Berlin Qualifying; Erik Jones on Pole After Invert

Carson Hocevar has proved to have a very fast car this week at Berlin Raceway. The NASCAR star was fastest in opening practice for the UARA National Series Battle at Berlin 250 on Wednesday afternoon, and in the evening qualifying session, he once again turned the quickest lap of anyone in the 31-car field.

It is worth noting that Hocevar will not start from the pole as there was a qualifying redraw invert prior to the start of Wednesday night's Battle at Berlin 250. The top-eight qualifiers will be inverted, which means Hocevar will start back in eighth, while fellow NASCAR star Erik Jones will roll from the pole.

Hcoevar clocked in with a 16.430 second circuit around the 7/16-mile short track in the qualifying session in his No. 71H Zeigler Auto Group machine.

"I thought it was pretty good," Hocevar said of his qualifying lap. "You know, it's tough. Berlin isn't like it was a year ago, or even in the spring here. It's a lot different and the times have gotten a lot slower with this McCreary tire. But luckily we were really quick in this TK Racing / VanDoorn car, Zeigler Auto Group got a lot of really good folks here. It's been a while since I've gotten a fast time so to be able to do that tells us we feel good about our race car."

Brian Campbell was second fastest in the session, and was just 0.009 seconds off the fast time set by Hocevar.

Dylan Stovall was perhaps the story of the day as he suffered a massive crash in practice earlier in the day after sliding in oil laid down on the track by another car, which wiped out his primary car.

Stovall's team rallied back to their shop and were able to get a backup car turned around in time to make it to the track for qualifying. And in qualifying, he impressed as he cranked out the third-fastest lap.

"Literally everybody in the pits helped us get the car together and get it ready here at the racetrack. Kind of just took a deep breath and cleared our mind and drove it into 1 and drove it into 3 and hoped it stuck in each corner and it laid down a lap, man. I'm speechless. I don't know what to say, I don't know what to say. We just put it P3 at the Battle at Berlin 250."

Following the qualifying session, Stovall told the broadcast team that his primary car was a brand new race car from his VanDoorn Racing team. With it being wiped out, he's back to driving "Old Faithful" for the remainder of the night.

"We call this [car] Old Faithful, man. We drove it all year last year at Berlin on the Hoosier tire. But we qualified like 28th in the race and drove all the way up to sixth. This car has done nothing but treat us good. We have good notes on this car, and I've got an amazing team behind me."

Kyle Crump, Jeremy Doss, Kole Raz, Evan Szotko, and Erik Jones rounded out the top-eight qualifiers in the session.

Sean Gipson had turned the 14th-fastest lap on the opening lap of his qualifying run but experienced a stuck throttle on the second lap, which sent him into the tire barriers on the exit of Turn 2. After the crash, Gipson and his team were forced to withdraw from the event.

UARA National Series Battle at Berlin 250 Qualifying Results

Start Pos.Qual Pos.No.DriverLap timeDiff
184JErik Jones16.4870.057
2722SEvan Szotko16.4800.050
3627Kole Raz16.4720.042
4544Jeremy Doss16.4660.036
5490CKyle Crump16.4620.032
6324SDylan Stovall16.4440.014
7247Brian Campbell16.4390.009
8171HCarson Hocevar16.430--
9914AMichael Atwell16.4940.064
101012GDerek Griffith16.4960.066
111124BGavan Boschele16.5520.122
1212131Blake Rowe16.5570.127
131326Bubba Pollard16.5650.135
141512BBrian Bergakker16.6030.173
151688SAndrew Sheid16.6050.175
161720HAustin Hill16.6190.189
1718101JJoe Bush16.6340.204
18194RTyler Rycenga16.6530.223
192071KKatie Hettinger16.6620.232
202129Austin Teras16.6670.237
212228TScott Thomas16.6730.243
222318BChase Burda16.6880.258
232418HKeith Herp16.6930.263
242592Levie Jones16.7060.276
252632SChris Shannon16.7550.325
262797TKendrick Kreyer16.7640.334
272824NSteve Needles16.8480.418
282932LTreyten Lapcevich16.8530.423
2930407Jason Vail16.8850.455
303197LDerek Lemke16.9660.536
WD1445Sean Gipson16.5660.136

Photo Credit: Koty Geyer

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