The NASCAR Cup race in Mexico City was held three weeks ago, and yet people are still talking about it, including the way Carson Hocevar spun out Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
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It was the second instance where the two tangled in a three week span, having a previous incident where Hocevar ended Stenhouse’s day early at Nashville. But Mexico City ratcheted up the conflict between the two drivers.
So after apologizing to Stenhouse for the Mexico City incident, Hocevar tried to apologize once again during Wednesday’s edition of the Dale Jr. Download podcast. Hocevar admits he messed up at Mexico, but said he was holding his own and standing up for himself at Nashville.
“So I saw him in front of me and he was kind of like pushing up and I was trying to help him,” Hocevar began to explain the Mexico City incident with a sigh. “I’m just trying to get comfortable and the straightaways are so long that our cars are kind of slow with the horsepower, with the elevation, everything.
“I noticed he was catching the guys in front. I was like, ‘Oh, I’m going to earn some (track position) back here. I’m going to push him down the straightaway.’ I was kind of staying close and everything and I just had the biggest brain fade ever. I just got in the corner and I was like, ‘Oh, there’s a corner here.’ And so, I went to the brakes. I locked up.”
Hocevar: I just kind of zoned out
Hocevar went on to explain, “I just kind of zoned out. I was just banging gears… For a minute, my guys thought I passed out because my car just goes straight. And I am legitimately in there holding the wheel straight… I was just literally just sitting there and I’m watching him and I don’t even turn the wheel.”
Hocevar knew he’d messed up and prayed Stenhouse would recover from the spin Hocevar put him in.
“I’m just literally watching him spin and I’m just like, ‘Please, for the love of God, save this thing. Even if you lose a spot, just save it,’” Hocevar said. “And I just watch him spin around. I’m just like, ‘Okay, do I just wait for him to go? Do I just get wrecked now?’
“So my car just stayed there for a while and they thought I legitimately had like a medical emergency, like I passed out from the heat and whatever. But I was just like no, I was just sitting there watching.”
While Stenhouse was lucky to be able to continue on and finish the Mexico City race, he ended up a disappointing 27th place, while Hocevar finished 34th.
Another incident two weeks earlier in Nashville
The 22-year-old from Portage, Michigan has drawn the ire from a number of drivers this season, with Stenhouse just the latest victim of sorts. Hocevar readily admits he’s an aggressive driver “100 percent.”
Two weeks before the Mexico City incident, Hocevar and Stenhouse had a run-in in Turn 3 at Nashville, where Hocevar wrecked Stenhouse and ended his day early.
“I thought like there’s a car directly in front of him,” Hocevar said. “I’d show my nose really early. He’s probably going to want clean air. He’s going to run the middle and I’m going to take that hole or I’m gonna at least make him go higher. And he didn’t.
“And I was just like, ‘No, you’re not coming down here. I got you.’ And then it kind of just like forced this to happen. That’s just kind of the instinct of just who I am, like when you start doing something, I’m just going to take that last second of like, ‘No, hold on. Like I’m coming in. I’m on my way.’
“I think he thought I was going to cut him a break and I was just like, ‘Well, why couldn’t I get one, too, like why can’t (we) race side by side in that corner?””
End result, bing-bang-boom and Stenhouse’s day ends early, finishing 39th.
While the Stenhouse-Hocevar feud has calmed down since Mexico City, they’re both very aggressive drivers and even though they’ve talked things out twice now, it almost seems inevitable that they’ll have another run-in again soon, perhaps as early as this weekend’s race at Sonoma Raceway in California.
