It’s safe to say that everyone had something to say about Carson Hocevar this week.
After Hocevar made contact with Brad Keselowski at Darlington, and then seemed pretty nonplussed when asked about it after the race, people across NASCAR media offered their take on how the young driver handled the situation.
Many of these call outs were negative, with the likes of Denny Hamlin and Freddie Kraft scorching Hocevar for what they saw as a lack of seriousness. But others liked the role that Hocevar was playing, with no one more on his side than Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I don’t know man. I like a lot of what I see,” Earnhardt said on the Dale Jr. Download this past week. “We need the rivalries, the entertainment of it. We do. And he’s providing it. If you pulled Hocevar out of the field entirely, I don’t know if I like it as much as him involved in it.”
Earnhardt added that he thought that maybe we needed more drivers like Hocevar — at least that way, he wouldn’t have to be the only one in the spotlight week after week.
How Hocevar would respond to the conversation around him this week was a narrative to follow heading into Gateway on Sunday. On the track, Hocevar performed well, finishing eighth in a race that proved to be a war of attrition with a season-high 18 cautions on the night. But Hocevar’s response off the track after the race had a far great impact.
As the track cleared, Hocevar hung around with fans, signing autographs and taking photos for 20 minutes. Asked by Motorsport.com’s Matt Weaver if the team that was waiting for him to get back so they could clean up shop would be frustrated with him, Hocevar smiled.
“I don’t think Jeff Dickerson would ever be mad at us signing some autographs,” he said. “Some of us are still fans at heart.”
It’s exactly the type of statement Hocevar and Spire needed to reset the conversation a bit. While Hocevar’s perception among his fellow drivers has been quite low of late, he’s only become more of a fan favorite. Hocevar addressed both perceptions on Sunday, by racing clean on the track, and then taking time with fans after the race.
“I’ve been wanting them to do that,” Hocevar said. “I had the whole fans against the stands. I got out, and you’d think I’d won the race. And I was like, ‘Why are they yelling? Oh, I got out.’ I was talking to them, and I was like, ‘Hey, can I go over there?’ and it was like, probably not. And then they opened the gate, and they came to me, and I was like, well all right, I’m not going to say no. Saying no would be against everything I stand for.
“If you want to make a change, you’ve got to do the change. You’ve got to start the trend. So hopefully some others might take advantage of that.”
Hocevar shared a similar sentiment on social media after the race.
“We race for everyone on the other side of the wall,” Hocevar wrote in a post. “Everyone at spire is a fan at heart still, just some of us get to enjoy the other side of the fence.”
One good deed won’t be enough to clean Hocevar’s slate in the eyes of his fellow drivers that he’s had issues with, but it is a start. In the meantime, gestures like the one he made on Sunday are only going to bring more fans into the No. 77 team.
