Yet again, Carson Hocevar found his name doing the rounds after his Atlanta outing, where he threw a wrench into Christopher Bell’s day on the first overtime restart. Restarting on row two at EchoPark Speedway, Hocevar tried to get into a hole between the leaders, Bell and Bubba Wallace, going three-wide into a diminishing gap.
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The move backfired as Hocevar clipped the left rear of Bell’s No. 20 Toyota, sending him spinning nose-first into the SAFER barrier and ending his day as a result. Bell chose to stay silent after the race, but his teammate Denny Hamlin did not bite his tongue.
On his Actions Detrimental podcast, Hamlin sent a message between the lines, hinting that payback could be waiting down the road if Hocevar keeps poking drivers, as he is often known to do. Even Dale Earnhardt Jr., who once backed Hocevar, drawing comparisons to his father, weighed in, noting the Spire driver could be stacking up enemies in the field.
Hocevar, though, seems cut from a different cloth altogether. In a clip shared by Dirty Mo Media, he brushed off the heat over his style, saying he keeps his eyes on gaps and lap times, not microphones and timelines. “I just watch all the shows and listen… I’m just racing. I’m out there. I see opportunities. And, this is all I think about. This is all I do.”
He doubled down, drawing a line between media chatter and on-track results. “Like the rest is noise, and I laugh at it sometimes, or I see it, but there’s not one bit where I look at any podcast or anything. I just look at it, and that’s just entertainment. The rest is all competition, and I separate it,” he continued, making it clear he lets his performance do the talking, or so he wishes.
In another clip from the same episode, Hocevar confessed to joking with friends that he might not top every fan poll, but he could be their favorite driver’s favorite. The 23-year-old racer waved off fears of payback, saying he is “just racing,” comparing contact to a shooter missing skeet targets and taking it in stride.
He believes that on track, he can make moves stick, and race aggressively because the Next Gen era rewards that edge, especially with the robust nature of the current package and how it takes to contact with other cars. If someone wants to settle a score, Hocevar frames that as intent.
However, one thing is for sure: Hocevar’s stance, take it or leave it, has pulled in a wave of younger fans, and drawn attention to the sport, all the while debates over his style keep bubbling.
