Carson Hocevar’s Contact With Zane Smith at Iowa Leads to Heated Exchange After the Race

Jerry Bonkowski | 04/08/2025
NASCAR Preview: Carson Hocevar & Zane Smith weigh up their chances ahead of NASCAR Cup race at World Wide Technology Raceway

Zane Smith is quickly putting his name and face on a Most Wanted poster.

Last week at Indianapolis, he was involved in an incident with Christopher Bell. Smith’s day came to an end on Lap 161 when he made contact with Bell, finishing 31st. Bell, meanwhile, roared back to a strong eighth place finish, salvaging a day that still had him fuming at Smith after the race.

Sunday at Iowa Speedway, Smith was involved in another incident, this time with Carson Hocevar. Once again, Smith got the worst part of the deal, finishing 36th (second-to-last), while Hocevar recovered nicely, mirroring Bell’s finish at Indy, also finishing eighth.

“I felt like our car was pretty good,” Hocevar said. “The strategy, I don’t know if anybody could have predicted how this race works. Yeah, it was a solid day.”

The post-race interview with Hocevar was abruptly ended when Smith’s crew chief, Ryan Bergenty, reportedly came over and launched into a profane chastising of Hocevar, per media reports by Stephen Stumpf and Toby Christie.

“Hey, when are you going to f***ing drive, dude?” Bergenty can be heard saying on video. “Man, you wiped us the f*** out. Our car is f***ing wrecked because you drive like a f***ing re***d.”

Smith didn’t earn any points with his team, either. According to Stumpf, Smith allegedly said over his team radio after the incident with Hocevar, blasting his crew: “Gotta quit telling me how to f***ing drive these things, dude. Every time I poke middle we get f***ing wrecked.”

Post Edited By: Abhishek Ramesh
Carson Hocevar Christopher Bell Iowa Speedway Zane Smith

About the author

Jerry Bonkowski

Jerry Bonkowski

Jerry Bonkowski is a veteran sportswriter who has worked full-time for many of the top media outlets in the world, including USA Today (15 years), ESPN.com (4+ years), Yahoo Sports (4 1/2 years), NBCSports.com (8 years) and others. He has covered virtually every major professional and collegiate sport there is, including the Chicago Bulls' six NBA championships (including heavy focus on Michael Jordan), the Chicago Bears Super Bowl XX-winning season, the Chicago White Sox and Chicago Cubs World Series championships, two of the Chicago Blackhawks' NHL titles, Tiger Woods' PGA Tour debut, as well as many years of beat coverage of the NFL, MLB, NHL and NBA for USA Today. But Jerry's most notable achievement has been covering motorsports, most notably NASCAR, IndyCar, NHRA drag racing and Formula One. He has had a passion for racing since he started going to watch drag races at the old U.S. 30 Dragstrip (otherwise known as "Where the Great Ones Run!") in Hobart, Indiana. Jerry has covered countless NASCAR, IndyCar and NHRA races and championship battles over the years. He's also the author of a book, "Trading Paint: 101 Great NASCAR Debates", published in 2010 (and he's hoping to soon get started on another book). Away from sports, Jerry was a fully sworn part-time police officer for 20 years, enjoys reading and music (especially "hair bands" from the 1980s and 1990s), as well as playing music on his electric keyboard, driving (fast, of course!), spending time with Cyndee his wife of nearly 40 years, the couple's three adult children and three grandchildren (with more to come!), and his three dogs -- including two German Shepherds and an Olde English Bulldog who thinks he's a German Shepherd.. Jerry still gets the same excitement of seeing his byline today as he did when he started in journalism as a 15-year-old high school student. He is looking forward to writing hundreds, if not thousands, of stories in the future for TheSportsRush.com, as well as interacting with readers.

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