Career-Best Finish Comes with Turmoil for Hocevar

Carson Hocevar enjoyed a career-best finish of second at Atlanta Motor Speedway. However, his day could be chalked up as a steep learning moment.

The second-year driver was involved in multiple on-track incidents with drivers, including two former champions in Kyle Busch and Ryan Blaney.

The first came on lap 61 when under caution, Busch radioed to his crew: “I don’t care if I wreck the whole ——-(expletive) field, I’m over him.”

Then came a late-race caution when Blaney got a shove by Hocevar, which sent Blaney’s No. 12 Ford loose and into a slow spin.

Following the race, a metaphorical line formed with Ross Chastain and Blaney taking their turns to speak with Hocevar.

Chastain didn’t disclose what he said to Hocevar. Blaney, however, was open about their discussion.

“I just said, ‘Hey, you gotta calm down,'” Blaney recalled. “I told him a couple moves that he made earlier in the race that were really, really sketchy. Obviously, me getting spun.

“He should know better than to hit me in that spot. You can’t just run into my bumper as I’m turning into the corner. Like, I’m gonna wreck.

“So, I just told him, ‘You gotta calm down. You got a lot of talent, but, you gotta be a little bit easier in these certain moments. Be a little bit smarter.'”

While Hocevar wouldn’t go into detail about what was said by either competitor during his interview with FOX, the Spire Motorsports driver apologized to Hendrick Motorsports owner Rick Hendrick for not pushing Kyle Larson to the win before the caution flag promptly ended the race on the final lap.

Spire has an alliance with HMS.

“I’ll just leave those to myself, but first off, apologies to Larson and HMS, Mr. H, everybody,” Hocevar began. “They help us out a lot, and I didn’t realize we weren’t racing back to the line. The last two nights were kind of that way. I hit the 20 (Bell) to get him out of the way and fill the middle. A little bit longer, maybe we win the race.

“Big thanks to Spire Motorsports, Chevrolet, everybody, Delaware Life. I normally ride in the back and run last, and I tried to get a good, decent finish.”

Hocevar was open to the criticism from his competitors as he explained that “There’s some stuff I got to learn and clean up a little bit.”

“I feel like we put ourselves in the perfect opportunity to try and win a race,” Hocevar said. “I’ve never had that opportunity really before, especially on a superspeedway.

“So, just a big day today for everybody at Spire Motorsports. They deserve all the praise. I just get to hold the wheel and run wide open and just try to put myself in a decent spot. Unfortunately it wasn’t the best spot, but it was just is one spot short.”