Ryan Blaney learned from the best in NASCAR as he was coming up through the ranks, but none more so than Hall of Famer Tony Stewart. And when faced with situations where he has to come up with a solution, Blaney oftentimes thinks to himself, “What would Tony do?”
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So when it came time to respond to a question about what advice he’d give to Carson Hocevar, who finished second to Blaney in last week’s Cup race at Nashville, Blaney channeled his inner Stewart.
“He definitely has a lot of speed. I think he’s one of the fastest drivers out there,” Blaney said of Hocevar on Monday’s edition of The Day After. “He has a lot of potential and he’s a young guy with a lead foot. I’ve always felt, and I think a lot of people will say this, is you can’t teach speed.
“It’s easier to slow someone down than speed them up. And he has the speed, he’s got all of it. And I think it’s just a learning phase. He’s made a couple mistakes that has cost some other people and people get upset with it, but that’s just how it goes.”
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. would definitely agree with Blaney’s statement. Stenhouse and Hocevar got together in a crash on Turn 3 earlier in the race at Nashville and Stenhouse got the worst of it, hitting the wall and ending his day, while Hocevar motored on to finish runner-up in the race.
Blaney was a bit like Hocevar in his first couple of years in the Cup world, first with the Team Penske-affiliated Wood Brothers Racing, and then earned a promotion to the main Penske operation. Blaney had to learn the hard way from his peers and went from crashing to consistent, earning respect from those same peers along the way.
Even though he was learning tons from the Wood Brothers and Roger Penske, one of the top lessons Blaney learned was from Tony Stewart.
“It’s learning and how do you grow from that?” Blaney said. “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.
“Tony chewed me out and I learned from it. 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. The experience level gets higher and higher.
“But yeah, he has a lot of potential, he showed a lot of speed last night (at Nashville), he’s shown a lot of speed all year to be honest with you.”
Blaney then added with a laugh about how he’s a veteran who’s definitely worried about the new kid on the block – namely, Hocevar. “He’s definitely someone that me as an old guy is going to have to be worried about for a long time until I hang it up,” Blaney said.
Even the boss has words with Hocevar
Even Spire Motorsports co-owner Jeff Dickerson called out Hocevar for his run-in with Stenhouse. “Man, you didn’t need to do that,” Dickerson told Hocevar. “It wasn’t going to cost him anything to let Ricky back in line. I just wish he’d have cut him a break.
“I have a personal relationship with Ricky and so I don’t want that to cloud it. I was like, s—, man. There’s plenty of times I go to Carson and I’m just like a 35-year-old Carson is not going to be cool with what you just said or did.”
Interestingly, even though Hocevar is his driver, Dickerson isn’t afraid to call him out. It’s a learning process for Hocevar, to have things pointed out when he does something wrong.
“I want to teach Carson how it is,” Dickerson said on the Dale Jr. Download. “I’m not trying to change him. I don’t want him to get in a car crashing contest out there.
“And Ricky, to me, he’s not going to wreck our car, he’s just going to go beat the hell out of him, which is how it probably should be. But you can’t get it until you go through it.
“It’s like being a parent and your kid shut his hand in a car door to see if it hurts – and sometimes you just have to let him.”
Right or wrong, no one can deny the fact that fans will keep an eye on Carson Hocevar in the races to come.
