Few drivers this season have generated as much controversy as Carson Hocevar. From several on-track incidents with opposing drivers — most notably with Ricky Stenhouse Jr. — to what he says on streaming and social media platforms, Hocevar continues to stir the pot for NASCAR in his second season in the Cup Series.
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But at the same time, the Portage, Michigan native is a walking, talking conundrum. Or perhaps a better way of saying it is Hocevar opens his mouth and inserts his foot far too often.
Most recently, it was this past weekend’s inaugural Cup race in Mexico City. Hocevar had yet another run-in with Stenhouse, who promised to get revenge. Even worse was his public criticism of the event in Mexico.
Those comments were so polarizing — although Hocevar claimed he didn’t intend anything derogatory — that his team Spire Motorsports took the rare step of fining Hocevar $50,000 for his comments. In other words, the team beat NASCAR when it came to penalizing Hocevar.
At the young age of 22 and in his second full-time season in the Cup Series, Hocevar could be accused of being immature and saying the wrong thing to or about the wrong people.
While last year’s Cup Rookie of the Year has quickly developed a growing fan base, if he continues the drama that he’s been attached to, he could be causing serious damage to his still-budding career.
Hocevar was a big part of this week’s Dale Jr. Download
On Wednesday’s edition of the weekly Dale Jr. Download podcast, Dale Earnhardt Jr. was joined by his Amazon Prime and TNT announcer’s booth mates Adam Alexander and Steve Letarte, and of course, Hocevar became a significant topic of conversation.
Earnhardt began the segment about Hocevar by criticizing the young driver for the two major run-ins he’s had with Stenhouse.
“This has been really hard to watch, honestly, because Ricky Stenhouse was 20 points above the cutline going into Nashville,” Earnhardt said. “That team does not belong in the playoff conversation, but they were overachieving incredibly. But it’s also a compliment to Ricky for just doing what he could do to be able to get them the best opportunity every single week.”
Letarte then interjected, saying, “I wonder if that’s not why I’m harder on Carson. If he would be wrecking (William) Byron or (Christopher) Bell or one of these front runners, I’d be like, ‘Let’s cut the kid some slack. Like, it’s going to be okay.’ But he keeps wrecking this guy that I’m cheering for as the underdog.
“He’s an underdog wrecking another underdog, I’m like, ‘Man, what are y’all doing?’ Like this is already hard enough. I wanted to believe (Hocevar) after Nashville and then after he ran over (Stenhouse) in Mexico, being a lap down, I’m like, ‘Man, what you say and what you do are not aligning.’”
Alexander then made a poignant observation as well. “Man, you are making this way harder than it needs to be,” he said of Hocevar. “Minimize distraction, make people your friends a little bit.
“I’m not suggesting that he needs to back off being fast or compromise who he is, but just be a decision maker that allows yourself to not deal with (distractions such as the feud with Stenhouse).
“Because now you go to Pocono and not only are you always looking over your shoulder at where’s Ricky, but you’re also going to have to field the questions and all of that steals the mindset probably that you need to go out and be successful, and we all know how hard this is anyway. I think he just needs to minimize the distraction.”
Can Hocevar stop his words and actions from becoming distractions?
And distraction is exactly what Hocevar did with his streamed comments on Twitch about racing in Mexico — uncomplimentary to say the least — which led to his team teaching him a very costly lesson, both emotionally and financially.
“It was a mistake that he made, something he shouldn’t have said,” Earnhardt said. “He had to send out an apology of sorts on social media and I read that and I didn’t find his apology cringey, I felt like I read that in his voice and I thought, ‘Alright, he realizes that was pretty stupid of him to do.’”
But then Junior followed those comments up by posing a hypothetical question to Hocevar. “Can he go out and continue to be who he wants to be? Because he doesn’t want to change who he is, but minimize the missteps, minimize the distraction,” Earnhardt said. “I said it after the race, this kid writes a new chapter of comedic errors every week.”
The biggest challenge Hocevar faces is whether he can reign himself in both on social media as well as on the racetrack.
“I love that he says what he thinks and I love that he’s entertaining,” Letarte said. “I like the focus on the 77 is because he’s fast, because he is kind of this lightning bolt.
“So I don’t want it to go away completely, I just hope for him that they find a way because there’s only two ways: it either gets polished up and we still get this personality, or at some point the valve just gets shut off and then we lose him, we lose all of our insight into him completely and he just kind of shutters in… and he’s not saying what he wants.
“And I don’t think any of us want that. I mean, it’s obviously who he is.”
