Given Ryan Blaney has been on the receiving end of Carson Hocevar’s aggressive tactics — specifically at Atlanta, where Hocevar ran into him entering Turn 1 — he isn’t rushing to defend the Spire Motorsports driver. In fact, Blaney has been outspoken about Hocevar’s driving, calling him a “moron” on the radio for repeatedly spinning out competitors, including himself, and labeled such behavior as flat-out unacceptable.
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When asked recently to weigh in on the Hocevar–Stenhouse Jr. controversy, and where he personally draws the line between aggressive, clean racing and outright recklessness, Blaney offered a grounded perspective rooted in experience. He credited his father, former racer Dave Blaney, for teaching him the boundaries early on.
Blaney admitted he took his lumps as a young driver, having been “chewed out” multiple times for overstepping those boundaries. He recalled spinning someone out in a late model race at age 13 and how his father wasted no time setting him straight: “This is wrong. You do not race this way. This is just how it is.”
“It was one of those situations where I’m racing someone hard, and I made a mistake. I slipped up, and I spun him out. It wasn’t intentional, but even those mistakes, Dad would really make me clean up right away. That’s just how his [Hocevar’s] dad raised him,” he added.
Blaney emphasized that while hard racing is essential to the sport, and contact is often unavoidable, repetition crosses the line. In his view, a driver’s apologies don’t mean much if they don’t translate into changed behavior.
He laid out his own benchmark clearly. Two guys are racing, and they’re bumping, fine, but over the line, as per Blaney, is when one of them gets run over and spun out. On Hocevar, he was blunt: “You ran into that guy [Stenhouse Jr].”
Blaney pushed back against those defending Hocevar, particularly claims that Stenhouse could’ve conceded room, saying, “I’ve read some stuff this week, and people are like, ‘Well, Stenhouse could have cut him a break.’ I’m like, ‘How can Stenhouse cut him a break?’” From a technical standpoint, Blaney said he doesn’t see how Stenhouse could’ve avoided the incident.
Ultimately, Blaney recognized that every NASCAR driver starts young and drives hard. Everyone has a heavy right foot when they get going, and that’s good. He acknowledged Hocevar’s talent, calling him a very gifted race car driver, one of the best out there. But he believes the 22-year-old needs to fine-tune his approach.
He doesn’t have to change who he is; this is what got him here, but he’s got to look at some of these situations and learn from them. The 2023 NASCAR Cup champion made it clear he’s not out to criticize, but he’s also not a fan of drivers repeatedly spinning others off their front bumpers.
Having experienced it firsthand, Blaney said he understands the frustration. But he posed a question that cut to the heart of the matter: “How many times are you gonna keep doing this until you learn?”
Blaney’s advice to Carson Hocevar
When asked what advice he’d offer Hocevar, who chased him to the checkered flag in last week’s Cup race at Nashville, Ryan Blaney didn’t hesitate to channel his inner Tony Stewart, a figure the No. 12 driver often looks to when seeking clarity in tough moments.
“He definitely has a lot of speed. I think he’s one of the fastest drivers out there,” Blaney said. “It’s learning and how do you grow from that? Hey, I got my ass chewed out by Tony Stewart my rookie year because I did something kind of foolish and dumb and just not knowing any better…”
“I moved on, and I tried to become a better race car driver from that. That’s just how it goes in every sport, you look at that, that’s just how it goes,” he added.
Hocevar, aggressive though he may be, has undeniably emerged as a serious contender in the field, thanks to the raw speed he brings each week. With just a bit more refinement, he might be ready to become one of the toughest threats on the grid.
