Carson Hocevar made moves, but no friend in Atlanta: ‘He is just moron’

Hampton, Ga. – Carson Hocevar He finished second, but on Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway there was no friend.

In the end, however, he knows that a stat sheet does not include a column for friends. So this answer or sounds bravely or just real things:

“I finished second. We are here to win in the races, we are not a boy’s band and love each other and play on the playground together,” Hocevar said.

22-year-old Hocevar had a reputation during his truck series Days for loss of composition and retaliation. This was decayed last year when the Spire Motorsports driver earned Nascar Top-Rookie honors in the Cup series.

But his aggressive style remained. This deserved praise from those at his camp and derision from competitors. And not necessarily because of the fact that the moves are aggressive, but because of when he decided to make these aggressive moves.

“Obviously, there are learning lessons,” Hocevar said. “You don’t want to kiss anyone or frustrate anyone, and there are things I would surely clean. But that will come with learning.”

Hocevar made so many drivers annoyed, lined up after the race to talk to him after the race.

Had 2023. Cup champion Ryan Blaney upset with him, as well as his own irrations mentor Ross Chastainwho co -owns a driver’s agency that includes Hocevar as one of his best clients.

Kyle BuschThe double Cup champion was amazing during the first stage of the race on Sunday in Atlanta because of the way Hocevar made aggressive moves to try to keep the position.

“I’m through him. … I’ll destroy his a–,” Busch told his team through his radio in the car.

Blaty, who turned Hocevar in the last phase, also emigrated to his team. Blaty thought Hocevar tried to give him push (a move that drivers sometimes make to increase the speed of both cars) in the area where he could not.

“He’s just Moron,” Blaty told his team. “Just run right in the back of us. He has a zero idea where to run into someone.”

Hocevar did not think it was a bad place, at least not at first.

“I was focused on defense more than hit him,” Hocevar said. “I didn’t think he would make up for it (in Spin). I thought I could hit him pretty hard. It was the first time I was probably lined up with a chevy nose with a nose Ford, and that was a bad place.

“It’s 100 percent on me … Sure, that’s for sure, it’s certainly not fun.”

Asking his first win in the Cup, Hocevar found himself races among the leaders in the end of the extension with two rounds. Could be squeezed between Kyle Larson and Christopher Bell And he seemed to shoot to make a pass to win when he was caution, a freezing field with Bella in the lead role.

Because drivers have already received a white flag (signaling the last round), Bell was named the winner.

That move in the last round did not result in a wreck. He ran that overtime ending like an experienced driver.

“Now he was enough there when you know that he would be the aggressor,” Bell said. “If there is a hole, he will take it. If there is no hole, he will make it.

“In the end, he pushed me to go through or make me break with me the side tandem and kyle down my back. Then I didn’t realize that Kyle opened the bottom as if he had entered (converted) 3 and let Carson sneak on in the middle of three. “

To be fair, Hocevar was not the only driver who had to respond to his moves. Drivers make mistakes on behalf of the aggression in almost every race. Larson tried to block Austin Cindric Late in the race, stabbing the Cindric into the wall and finishing the Cindric race.

Cindric led 47 rounds and finished with a destroyed racing car.

“(I was) just a slightly lazy type of track,” Larson said. “(Cindric) got a little faster there than I thought he would. … I’m sure I’m guilty.”

No one will call Larson bad names for applying a wreck because he gained respect as one of the greatest talents of sports.

Hocevar, on the other hand, has not yet gained that kind of respect. And while he was talented, there were enough races in which he made questionable decisions, so he couldn’t shake the reputation that the runner was out of control.

Hocevar admits that he did not lead the purest Sunday.

“There is some things I have to learn and clean a little,” he said. “But I feel like we have put ourselves in the perfect opportunity to try to win the race. I have never had this opportunity before, especially on Superzpeedway.”

In the past, Hocevar would try to run in the back of the super -specific event of the Superzpeedway event, using a strategy to return enough to avoid accidents. This occasionally worked, but he did not guarantee success.

Hocevar felt that there was a good enough car in Atlanta that he should not be racing in his back. He wanted to race.

“I was racing from a cloth drop,” Hocevar said. “I was on the move, I went to every race and just got a position. And every time we lost it, we would simply bring it back.

“For me, I had to make up for riding (in the past) and I had to gain all the experience I could have been super-aggressive and learn every move I could … again, there are things I would clean, but you won’t make the correct decisions every time , especially with how fast we go and how much running happens, and I can only apologize and say that I will be better. “

Numbers say he got everything he could (even if some of his competitors think he got more than he should). He finished ninth place in the first phase, seventh in the second phase, and then the second in the race.

“I usually am 40th, I wait for them to collapse and I hope it will collapse, and I end up in teenagers,” Hocevar said. “So to be in advance and get stage points and stage and have a goal to win is something that is my head.

“I always said that I was a really bad runner Superpeedway, so this at least gives me a little more confidence.”

Bob Pockras covers Nascar and Indycar for Fox Sports. For decades, he spent covering motor sports, including more than 30 Dayton 500s, with strikes in ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scenes Magazine and News-Journal (Dayton Beach). Follow it on Twitter @Bobpockrass.

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