Carson Hocevar has been impressive during his first full NASCAR Cup Series campaign in 2024, receiving praise from his peers, fans and media members alike.
The No. 77 wheelman has raced relatively clean throughout his rookie season, with a run-in with Kyle Busch earlier this season the lone blemish. Hocevar took some time to reminisce about that moment at Texas Motor Speedway, and how Busch turning his Chevrolet actually helped Hocevar in the end.
“I don’t think I’ve really had one they’ve missed. It’s pretty clear, all the run-ins I’ve had. Maybe the one they missed, but social media caught it, was Kyle Busch wrecking me at Texas,” Hocevar responded, asked about a run-in with a driver that might’ve flown under the radar, via the latest edition of 12 Questions with Jeff Gluck of The Athletic. “He was mad at me for something, so he just went down into Turn 1 and hooked me. TV didn’t catch it, but Twitter did; they showed the in-car (camera).
“But then we both finished top-10, so I was like, ‘I can’t be too mad.’ Him spinning me tore up my car and forced me into a different strategy that caught the yellow. It wasn’t like we ran 28th like we were originally going to. But then obviously, he’s had plenty of run-ins after that, so karma worked out for itself, I guess.”
Alas, Hocevar chose to take the high road, and it’s worked out for him. While he’s been steadily improving, Busch’s season has been in free-fall over the last couple of months. Who knows when the two-time NASCAR champion will turn things around.
On the other hand, Hocevar has continually turned heads, and he even received some major praise from Kevin Harvick earlier this month, who recognized the No. 77 has been on the rise in 2024.
“I think it was interesting to start that race, you talk about [Carson] Hocevar, and he got loose under Zane Smith and wiped out, hit Zane and then Zane got hit and wiped out Corey [LaJoie]. So, all three Spire cars were not on good footing right off the bat. But Hocevar is, he’s good. He’s been very fast, he’s been very fast in everything that he’s driven,” Harvick said, regarding the Spire Motorsports wheelman, via his Harvick’s Happy Hour show. “The thing I like about Carson Hocevar is, he’s learning and finishing. He’s not spinning out and driving over his head, which I think a lot of people thought he was going to do, me being one of them, on much more of an occasion than he has.
“He’s done a great job, in kind of tempering his speed, with making sure that the car is going in the right direction, and finishing races. He’s consistently positioning himself inside the top 15 now.”
As Carson Hocevar said, karma has worked out well for him in 2024, and not so great for Kyle Busch. Perhaps the No. 77 will shock the NASCAR world and get into the playoffs with a win over the summer, but with the way he’s been improving, it might not be a shock at all in the end.
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