By Roy J. Akers – www.skyviewsports.net
Brooklyn, Mich. — Carson Hocevar finished a career-best second at Nashville last weekend, but he also spun out a driver he might not want to tangle with. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. spoke with me, and he and Hocevar discussed last weekend’s incident that spun the 47 into the wall. The steam and war of words has turned into an easy truce today, but most drivers, according to Stenhouse Jr. sided with him after receiving multiple texts during the past week. Hocevar is going places, but he is not winning friends and influencing people. He meets with the media, and they pepper him with rough racing questions.
Carson Hocevar- The media asks him if he is the next Intimidator
| Carson Hocevar, driver of the No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet, met with the media in advance of the NASCAR Cup Series’ practice and qualifying session at his home track of Michigan International Speedway. |
| Media Availability Quotes: Ricky (Stenhouse Jr.) talked on SiriusXM this week saying that you’ve reached out and you guys are in a good spot now. What was that conversation like? What did you feel like you needed to reach out about and where do things stand between you guys now?“Yeah, I mean it was productive. You know, me and him both have the reputation, I guess, of being aggressive at times and everything. So at that one point, we both reminded each other that even with those reputations, we’ve raced each other very well together, right? It clashes together. So, yeah, I mean we’ve had no issues before, as he had said, and I feel like we’ve had a decent relationship leading up to this. So, yeah, I thought it was productive and, based off his comments, I felt like it was received productive.” When you look at the banking of this track and the track surface specifically, what makes this track so unique?“Yeah, I mean the straightaways are just so long; the corners are so long, or, you know, sweeping. This track in general is just very large. The whole thing feels banked the same all the way around. You just carry so much speed, especially here in a minute. We’re going to go really easy wide open in the Trucks and potentially easy wide open in Cup qualifying, especially how cold it is here. So, yeah, it’s obviously very unique, but I think it’ll eventually start aging even more that you can carry a lot of speed with not a lot grip.” Carson, are you the new ‘Intimidator’ and do you feel comfortable with that characterization?“I mean, if I win seven championships… But, you know, if you’re going to get compared to one guy, that’s the guy, endorsements from Dale Jr. and everybody. But I don’t think I’m ‘new’ anything, you know, I think I’m ‘new’ me. Everything about me is real… like I’m not trying to play a part, try to fit a role or trying to pretend to be anybody. But, you know, it’s for everybody else to decide on what they get and perceive of me. I know who I am and, you know, ultimately, I want to be known as me and sometimes that leads to comparisons.” Coming at the heels of the last three or four races and your 10th place finish last year at MIS, it seems like you’re on a roll. Do you really feel like you’re in a really good place right now as you march toward the playoffs?“Yeah, our cars are just continuing to get faster obviously. It’s been a lot of fun for me to see how quick Spire can grow and how quick we can get going. It’s just a lot of fun that it’s just continuous progression, right? If it’s one step backwards, we just take two steps forward, and that’s been fun that we can have quick turnarounds and quick improvements. You see little teams, they’ll circle their few tracks a year that they can run good at, and, you know, we’re circling the few tracks that we need to completely wholesale. We don’t really have that too big of a weak spot in our game right now that, you know, we can show up any given week and run really good. We just want to figure out how to be great at all these places.” In your mind, what’s the line between aggressive, clean driving and reckless driving?“Yeah, I mean, obviously, I think the line is when it’s, you know, blatantly intentional versus just racing. Obviously, we make a thousand decisions a race, right? And sometimes the only decisions you see, especially when you’re not leading, in front or on TV, the only decisions you see is the bad ones because that causes a yellow and that raises a lot of tension. So, I think every racecar driver kind of realizes that at times. Intensity will just pick up, especially with how hard it is to pass or whatever. The intensity just starts picking up at certain tracks. I think everybody can see the line, especially depending on how the race goes. That kind of dictates how aggressive everybody’s being, and that’s sometimes when you start seeing mistakes or, you know, too much aggression.” When you did drop back to 30th in points after Darlington, did you and Luke (Lambert) kind of sit down and say — okay, what do we have to do to forge our way forward?“I mean, yes, but it wasn’t like we were 30th in points because we were slow. It was 30th in points because we had some fuel pumps, some blown tires, some motors, some other parts we couldn’t handle. So it was just more of like realizing — hey, we’re 30th in points… not off speed, but just off a lot of freak things or mechanical issues that we’ll fix. We have too good of parts, too good of motors, too good of people to not put it all together, and when it gets put all together, we’ll be right where we want to be. Weeks and speed like we’ve been having is exactly what we expected, or thought, or why we didn’t put our head down and reinvent the wheel when we didn’t need to.” Do you guys have a strategy of getting into the playoffs on points if you don’t win?“I mean, yes. Ultimately, you’re just trying to just finish as well as you can. We’ve gotten stage points a lot this year and that has really made the difference. I think without stage points, we’d be like 30th in points. But with stage points, we’re 17th right now. So yeah, honestly, we just got to keep doing what we’re doing and we’ll be in a decent spot or hopefully in a good spot. It’s not going to be a walk-off, you know, I think it’s going to be close all the way down the line just where we’re at in points, especially if somebody wins. But I think we’re up for the challenge.” Even though you say there’s all these thousands of decisions that are made in a race that happen so quickly, the focus gets to be put on certain ones. This past week, was it an exhausting week or a distracting week in having to deal with one decision that was made in a split second?“It sometimes can be. I think Jeff Dickerson has a really good line… number one is that if you’re explaining, you’re losing, right? And number two, he had always used the line of, if we’re sitting here explaining a situation or sitting there talking about it, we’re not getting faster. And I use that in this scenario, right? This the focus now. It’s not focus of, man, how do we beat the No. 12 car that’s won two championships, right? It’s, okay, how do we have this conversation with our team, this driver that we hit, all that stuff. So, you know, that’s the difference… you just don’t want to have those conversations because you’re not getting faster with those conversations. Like, that’s what slows us down. It’s not everything else. That’s now what we’re focused on instead of just focused on just like — okay, how do we get 2.8 seconds faster in a whole race to win a race? So I think that was the biggest thing.” Looking ahead to next week, how are you getting adjusted or what’s your plan to try to get adjusted to the higher elevations in Mexico City and prepare for that as an athlete?“I don’t know. You know, I haven’t done a whole lot, so I’m hoping I’m okay when I get there. (laughs). I think we get there Thursday. We’re actually running more road course prep than altitude prep. Aaron Zeigler has some radicals or whatever… some cars that we’ll drive on the road course and just get accustomed to that. I asked him, I was like — hey, I know you have these cars at this road course club. I was like, I’ve been just running nonstop on this F1 game, but I got to drive something real on a road course.” How much do you consume all the stuff that’s being said about you when you’re at the center of attention like you were this week, whether it’s social media, fan sentiment, Sirius or anything like that? Are you paying attention? Are you looking at what’s being said?“Yeah, I mean, slightly. I forgot that we didn’t win the race. I forgot who won for a minute.But no, I mean, number one, it’s cool to just be talked about. Obviously, you want to be talked about maybe in a different light. But I mean, at least they’re talking, right? And I think that’s big for me. And, you know, you consume it… you see it all. You know, as Jeff Dickerson had mentioned before, he’s like, we’re trying to like round the edges. And then you have your like heroes texting you, just don’t change, right? He’s like, hold on, hold on… we need at least something a little different. But yes, I mean, ultimately, it’s fun to obviously be in the news. I mean, it’s what I’ve dreamt of my whole life, which is just at least being a topic of conversation. Yes, I mean, it’s cool from that aspect. But you know, obviously, you want to be it when you just dominate a Cup race, and they can’t stop talking about. That’s probably ultimately the next goal. But, you know, it’s definitely fun to at least see it all or just see my face everywhere. What’s it like to be back home coming off a second-place finish?“Yeah, I mean if you’re going to have momentum going into any place or a good finish going into any place, going home is obviously the spot — home for Zeigler Auto Group, home for me. You know, for whatever reason, I think your crew guys or whatever works a little harder when they know it’s the home race. You feel like you just walk in with a little bit extra confidence. So when you’re already feeling good about it, I feel like that that’s just an extra boost.” After your conversation with Ricky (Stenhouse Jr.), do you expect payback? And I guess in the same vein, when it comes to payback in NASCAR, if you had to pick, do you prefer the fists or the bumper?“Number one, no. And number two, I mean, they both hurt in some aspect.. one physically and one financially. So, I mean ultimately, it’s fun for fans.” Is that a tough call to make, to call a competitor that you’ve maybe roughed up a little bit? What’s that like, emotionally, going into that kind of call?“I mean, no, it’s not, at least it wasn’t when me and him talked. He owns a sprint car team, so he’s one of the first drivers I’ll go talk to just because I want to ask him about his sprint car team. So, you know, we’ve had that relationship, right? So, I mean, it’s not too hard to call. You just pick up the phone and call. I don’t get nervous a whole lot or awkward… sometimes I am awkward, but I don’t get nervous or anything before those calls, especially when I feel like it’s warranted. You see these guys 38 weekends, so it’s either you call them or you see them here. It’s probably just easier if you just move that timeline up. That’s really the biggest thing.” As a Michigan native, where would a win here, whether it be a Truck race or a Cup race, where would that rank among your career achievements of all the to win?“Yeah, I mean, this is number one or would be number one if we can win here. We have two opportunities to do that, which would be — I don’t think I’d ever top this one, but if I was able to complete both. But just being able to win one of these would be super, super cool and mean a lot.You know, somebody asked me earlier how much it would mean. I was like, man, I don’t know how to describe it in words, but I promise you when we win, you’ll see how much it means and hopefully we get a chance to show that.” Nashville last weekend was your was your first top-10 on the non-superspeedway this season. You guys have had the speed all year but not the finishes. What does a weekend like last weekend do where you guys had the speed, put it all together and got the finish? What does that do for just confidence, morale, chemistry heading into the coming weekend?“Yeah, I mean, ultimately, it’s points that we don’t feel like it was taken away finally. You know, a result that wasn’t taken away. It’s great to just finally at least have something to look at on Monday or Tuesday just for our guys alone. Our pit crew guys did a great job on a green-flag stop.I feel like, a lot of times, we’ve been doing the right things and not getting the reward to at least just be happy or at least somewhat be like, okay, we did it, you know? So I think it’s just big from a confidence standpoint into this last little bit of a push to just be like — okay, like we finally reaped the reward of performing at a high caliber and a high level that we feel like we all can. So I think that’s just the biggest thing, it’s finally just like a sigh of relief for everybody.” |
