The Xfinity Series race at Martinsville last weekend was stock car racing at its ugliest. The lack of racing ethics created a huge uproar across the industry and led to NASCAR holding a firm meeting with every driver ahead of the race in Darlington. In contrast to what many others believe, Carson Hocevar doesn’t want the promotion to indulge itself in the issue too much.
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His opinion came out after a reporter asked him what the cause for overly aggressive racing behaviors from drivers is. Being quite an aggressive driver himself, he replied, “You know, sometimes out of desperation, it could be. You know I’m guilty of a lot of it, right? You could get desperate at times or feel like you have to win and that just blinds your judgment at times.”
The Spire Motorsports driver was at the center of controversy for racing too aggressively at the Atlanta Motor Speedway earlier this year. His actions led to incidents with Ryan Blaney and Ross Chastain, but he went home with the best finish of his Cup Series career (second place). The ends justify the means, from his perspective.
However, there is another good reason why he doesn’t want NASCAR to heavily penalize such aggression. It’s because it could cause drivers to go from being aggressive on the offense to being aggressive on the defense. He added, “You know, people that are super aggressive are going to potentially feel handcuffed a little bit there. I feel like it always self-polices itself anyways.”
Safe to say, after Saturday, NASCAR does not want to intervene too much either.
NASCAR makes it clear that it doesn’t want to get involved
The driver meeting on Saturday was mandatory for every Xfinity Series driver to attend. Austin Hill was a part of the meeting, and he revealed some key details about the thought process of the officials. For one, they appear to have made it clear that they don’t want to make in-race calls against reckless drivers if they can help it.
There goes Denny Hamlin’s demand for the black flag to be used more often in a stricter manner. Hill explained, “Well, NASCAR made it very, very clear that they don’t want to be in the ‘ball and strike’ business. They don’t want to be making all these calls. So they said for us to help them with that.”
Drivers don’t want to leave the promotion with no choice but to step in and begin throwing the black flag or parking cars. Self-policing appears to be the way forward. How well drivers do it will determine the shape of the future.
