Hocevar, veterans react after Hocevars Nashville penalty: 'Hopefully it teaches you a lesson'

CHICAGO — Carson Hocevar left Nashville Superspeedway lighter in the pocket and farther down the points standings.

What he’s not concerned about is proving anything to anyone in the NASCAR Cup Series garage.

Hocevar was fined $50,000 and docked 25 points after contacting and spinning Harrison Burton under caution during the Ally 400 on June 30. The 21-year-old rookie driver of the No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet is, unfortunately, no stranger to controversy, incurring prior in-race penalties for on-track incidents through his past three years spent in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.

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The Michigan native is back in the Midwest for the second Chicago Street Race along the city streets. But before hopping into his car, he explained his perspective on the Nashville incident that cost him.

“My intentions were not by any means to have him (spun) around,” Hocevar said Saturday morning. “You know, I went up to bump him like you’ve seen 1,000 times and happened to me a lot. He wanted to use 1,000 pounds of brake pressure in front of me, and then obviously, it happened from that But, you know, if you get in a bar fight and whatnot, the guy who throws the last punch that lands somebody on the ground isn’t the one that gets in trouble. It’s the one that initiated it.

“So moving forward, I just won’t initiate anything like that. And if anything, I’ll either talk to him after the race or I go up next to him and throw my hand in the air rather than use a race car.”

Hocevar believes “no,” he does not have to prove anything to his competitors about any lessons learned. But not everybody agrees that the No. 77 car didn’t turn Burton’s No. 21 Ford intentionally.

Defending series champion Ryan Blaney specifically questioned Hocevar’s decision-making during a Saturday morning press conference at The Art Institute of Chicago.

“Pay money, pay points, park him if you have to,” Blaney said. “That’s something I’ve seen too many times out of that guy from different series. That’s not cool. Don’t do that. I mean, they parked Layne Riggs for two laps for running through the back of somebody in that Truck race at Nashville and and I think everyone made a big deal when Hocevar did that in the Cup race and then they rightfully penalized him after the race.

“I mean, that’s the only way you’re gonna get that stuff to stop. You have to make him pay a lot of money, fine him from points, things like that. If it’s bad enough, make him sit out. You know, that’s just stuff you learn as a young driver don’t do. Like there’s a lot of no-nos, and that’s one of them. And I don’t care if it’s under caution or under green. Both of them are worse. Obviously under green’s worse.

“But yeah, I think NASCAR did the right thing of penalizing because you have to slap people on the (wrist). There has to be repercussions for what you do when it’s something like that. And so that’s something I’ve seen be reoccurring with him that hopefully he learns from it and hopefully when there’s a little bit a hole in his pocket after the money he had to pay, hopefully it teaches you a lesson of ‘don’t do that anymore.\"”

Hocevar remained steadfast Saturday that brake traces and in-car telemetry paint a different picture, but admitted his “track record is not squeaky clean.”

“I mean, if you see the SMT (data), I think you’ll understand and I think that shows a different picture completely of the whole situation,” Hocevar said. “But I’m not going to — there’s no point for me to release that or do anything. It is what it is and I’ll move on. My team is very supportive of me. And I think they fully believe and they are in full support and they’ve reassured me of that. That’s really what matters to me.”

Before Brad Keselowski became a Cup champion in 2012, there were instances of him ruffling feathers with Cup guys like Denny Hamlin and Carl Edwards while Keselowski was still making a name for himself in the Xfinity Series. Some 15 years removed from some significant rivalries, the 40-year-old driver and co-owner of RFK Racing offered his own perspective on what Hocevar’s rise — and simultaneous conflicts — may entail.

“Certainly understand how hard it is to break through in the Cup Series and that desire to make an immediate impact,” Keselowski said. “You have to be careful, in my experience having gone through it, to not allow that to be a negative to you, right? You can almost try too hard. And it’s a good and bad thing to try too hard sometimes. You certainly prefer someone who tries too hard over someone who doesn’t try at all. But there’s certainly a sweet spot there that I think each driver to some degree has to find on their own.

“And there’s an argument — strong argument — to be made that he’s on the other side of that and not living in that sweet spot. I hope for his own sake, he can find that spot. I have some empathy for that and with respect to that, I felt like I needed to flirt with kind of that border of being too aggressive. And that served me well. And you know, sometimes I would look back and say, ‘Yeah, I probably might have gone just a touch too far on the line or over the line. So I think you’ve got to find that spot and decide where it is and live comfortably.”