It’s a sad fact: Some people just don’t like to see other people succeed where conventional wisdom says they shouldn’t. There are certainly many examples in politics to say nothing of the world in general, and NASCAR has a few of its own.
The best current example has to be Carson Hocevar. While Hocevar has been a hot topic due to his so-called aggressive driving, I believe the reason that Hocevar finds himself under a microscope goes much deeper than that.
Currently, Hocevar drives the #77 Chevrolet for Spire Motorsports. Spire, as an organization, has one Cup Series win, the July 2019 Daytona win by Justin Haley. Beyond that, the organization has just a dozen Top 5s since the team’s first Cup start in 2019, two of which came in runner-up finishes by Hocevar earlier this year.
To put it bluntly, Spire Motorsports is never in the conversation when experts to gather to talk about their picks to win next week’s race – not on the intermediates, the road courses, the short tracks or even the superspeedways.
And yet here’s Carson Hocevar running up front. One could certainly point to this race or that incident and say that Hocevar had to ruffle a few feathers and bend a few bumpers along the way. But along the way as well, Hocevar has taken a car that probably should have routinely topped out in the Top 20 and put it in the mix. Including the two runner-up finishes (Atlanta and Nashville), he’s finished in the top dozen in a third of the first 30 races of 2025. Not too shabby but why is he condemned and not beloved?
In a sport that honours the hard chargers of the past, is it less about how Hocevar gets to the front and more about that fact that he’s at the front?
While the Penskes, Gibbs (along with 23XI) and Hendricks of NASCAR may have struck an uneasy understanding that they’ll share time in Victory Lane, there is the sense that they’re not too keen on letting others join their power group (hence the demise of Michael Waltrip Racing and Furniture Row Racing over the last decade).
A similar situation happened a couple of years ago when Ross Chastain and the upstart Trackhouse Racing. Chastain was another hard charger with a smaller team that was getting to the front. The result was that just about every week, every wreck was blamed on Chastain and Denny Hamlin seemed to make it his personal mission to bully him out of the sport.
No one is specifically targeting Hocevar. It just seems like if the #77 is on the same straightaway as the wreck, every driver caught up in the incident’s first reaction seems to be to see how they can blame Hocevar. A lot of the media types surrounding NASCAR are ready to do the same.
Some of these incidents, upon retrospect, can legitimately be blamed on Hocevar but the question I want to ask: Is Carson Hocevar the victim of being in the wrong place at the wrong time or is he just in the wrong equipment at the wrong time?
If Hocevar’s #77 was a Toyota and rolled out of the JGR, how much of a different reaction would he get?
And this raises another question: how much more success would Hocevar if he was driving for JGR, Penske, or Hendrick? As much as I love a good underdog story, there have been times this season where I’ve seen Hocevar running at the front but it became evident that he just didn’t have the equipment under him to take the next step in his career and win a Cup race.
But remember, this is a driver with an organization that, perhaps for the most part, is lucky to run in the Top 20 in only his second full season in the Cup Series. Instead of spending his time having to worry about going a lap down, Hocevar is in a position to focus on about what he needs to do to win.
If he was battling Hamlin, Kyle Larson or Ryan Blaney in equal equipment, I believe Hocevar has the talent and the drive to be able to make the important passes for position, for the lead and eventually for the win.
It may be that Hocevar’s reputation for “reckless driving” may spoil the chances that one of these larger teams would give him an opportunity at the quality of ride that would solidify his future in NASCAR. In a sport that continues to talk about how it sorely needs drivers with personality, Hocevar is such a driver that has personality is spades. His is not the type that goes out of his way to alienate large portions of the fanbase. Instead, he comes across as the fun-loving, boy-next-door type who just enjoys driving race cars for a living.
NASCAR needs more of these types going to Victory Lane. The question is: will Carson Hocevar ever get that chance and what could he do with it?
johnmilner.ca 