Carson Hocevar couldn't be more wrong about NASCAR not being serious

Spire Motorsports driver Carson Hocevar. IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Make no bones about it, Carson Hocevar is an incredibly talented race car driver and just as talented of a salesman.

His no-holds-barred style of racing has polarized the NASCAR garage and made him the most talked about driver in the sport. He won his first career Cup race at Talladega in April and made the Chase, taking Spire Motorsports to new heights.

But Hocevar also did all that while making most of his competitors frustrated with him. Hocevar most recently drew the ire of Brad Keselowski, who was spun by Hocevar in Sunday's Southern 500 at Darlington.

Hocevar jokingly added an extra six percent off to a discount in his merchandise store, which raked in nearly $200,000 in the 24 hours after Sunday's race, according to Sports Business Journal.

From the source .@CarsonHocevar's online souvenir shop approached nearly $200,000 in sales over the last 24 hours following the Southern 500, per SBJ info.

➡️ Hocevar gave a 29% discount: 23 percentage points for moving up that many positions plus six more after his tussle with Brad Keselowski.

Say what you will about Hocevar, but you can't say he's not a good driver or that he's not good at marketing himself.

What you can say about Hocevar is that his laissez-faire attitude seems destined to come back to bite him. Nobody has retaliated against him on the racetrack yet, but that retaliation could still come. At the least, you won't see the No. 77 Chevrolet getting pointed by anytime soon.

Spire Motorsports was called unserious by Denny Hamlin on Monday for not reigning in their young 23-year-old driver. Hocevar's response, while continuing to drive the narrative, didn't help his case.

"So many people are gonna discredit you for being a fan of us," Hocevar wrote in a Facebook post. "They're gonna call you dumb, fake fans, and worse. NASCAR doesn't have to be that serious. We race for the fans. Even the ones that hate us. Regardless [of] if we're an [unserious] organization."

Carson Hocevar responds to Denny Hamlin's comments made on his podcast regarding Spire Motorsports:

While Hocevar is right that fandom should never become personal or hateful, his remarks went well wide of the point Hamlin was making.

While a sport, NASCAR is a livelihood for thousands of people. It is a motorsport with millions of fans in which drivers, including Hocevar, risk life and limb each week in order to race.

It is serious business, and Hocevar calling it the opposite only makes his off-handed dismissal of his run-ins with competitors look worse. He appears to be completely oblivious to the fact that his actions on the racetrack not only cost his competitors wins and points, but also tens of thousands of dollars.

If he can't rein himself in and stop hitting other drivers, they're going to cost his own organization hundreds of thousands of dollars in wrecked race cars, as well as a championship.

Many have compared Hocevar to a young Dale Earnhardt, and on the surface, the comparison makes sense: Both drivers were brash, talented but wild in the early days of their careers and didn't spend much time thinking about what others thought of them.

The difference is that off the racetrack, Earnhardt was a different man. He was far from the rambunctious racer and a much more caring, gentle individual who had the best interests of his competitors at heart. Earnhardt also won off the bat, winning the championship in his second season in 1980 and going to victory lane six times in his first three seasons. With nice races left in his third season, Hocevar's Talladega triumph is the only one of his career.

Hocevar has admitted that he has no friends in the garage. Such is the case when you wreck most of those who share it with you.

But Hocevar also doesn't slip in and out of character as Earnhardt seemingly used to do. His dismissive attitude toward his actions is present whether or not he's at the track or at home.

Hocevar has all the talent in the world, but he's not using it to his full potential right now, nor will he be able to if his car is a mangled heap of sheet metal after it's spun by one of his competitors who finally got fed up enough to take action.

Hailing from the same neck of the woods as NASCAR Hall of Famer Mark Martin, Samuel has been covering NASCAR for Yardbarker since February 2024. He has been a member of the National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) since October of 2024. When he’s not writing about racing, Samuel covers Arkansas Razorback basketball for Yardbarker