- Carson Hocevar asked NASCAR fans to pull his own name off the Most Popular Driver ballot and vote for Kyle Busch instead.
- The Spire Motorsports driver spoke about getting hit from behind by Zane Smith, who was fined $50,000, and about his growing friendship with Ryan Blaney.
- Hocevar reflected on life after his first Cup win at Talladega, from more autograph lines to a title he says he keeps for good.
A Driver Who Would Rather Hand the Trophy to Someone Else
Carson Hocevar had a simple request for the people who vote on NASCAR’s Most Popular Driver award this year: skip his name and write in Kyle Busch. He said it plainly to reporters ahead of qualifying for the Cup Series race at Talladega Superspeedway on October 24, pointing out that winning the honor by default, with a two-time champion no longer racing full time, would not sit right with him. He drew his own comparison to Dale Earnhardt Sr., who won the award after his death in 2001. Hocevar wants no part of a similar outcome. He would rather see Busch, who has spent two decades building a fan base through wins, feuds, and a Hall of Fame resume, carry the honor into retirement on his own terms.
The gesture tells you something about where Hocevar stands six months after his breakthrough win at this same track. He is 23, driving for a team that spent years scraping for top-20 finishes, and he is suddenly popular enough that people vote for him. He would still rather point the spotlight somewhere else.
Getting Hit From Behind and Not Seeing It Coming
Reporters asked Hocevar about a $50,000 fine NASCAR handed to Zane Smith the week before Talladega, the penalty tied to contact Smith made with Hocevar’s car after a race. Hocevar said the hit caught him off guard. He assumed a car ahead of him had slowed or stopped, checked his mirrors, saw the track clear, and only then realized someone had driven into the back of his Chevrolet. He did not describe it as a grudge. He called it a moment of confusion that only made sense once he watched the replay.
That kind of contact has followed Hocevar through much of his rise. He pointed to Bristol earlier this season as a race where, with a fast car underneath him, he gave his rivals little room. He owns that reputation rather than running from it. Asked about his season overall, he said the No. 77 Chevrolet has not been fast in recent weeks and that he is out of championship contention. He called that honest, not discouraging. Without a shot at the title, he said, there is less pressure riding on each lap and more room to simply race hard, which he called more fun than fighting for points he does not expect to collect.
The Plane Ride That Built a Friendship With Ryan Blaney
Hocevar also talked about his relationship with Ryan Blaney, one of the sport’s most established stars and a past Cup champion. The two were not close for most of Hocevar’s rookie seasons, but a small favor changed that. After a race at New Hampshire, Blaney needed a ride home and had none arranged. Hocevar offered him a seat on the Spire Motorsports plane. Blaney took it, the two talked the whole way, and the relationship has grown steadily from that flight onward. Hocevar also said he helped spark Blaney’s interest in WhistlinDiesel, the stunt and truck-building YouTube personality, a detail that shows how much of garage friendship in NASCAR still runs through shared jokes and side interests rather than anything that happens on track.
Hocevar did not describe Blaney as a mentor so much as a peer who chose to treat him like one. For a driver still building his name across the garage, that kind of respect from a champion means more than any stat sheet could show.
What Winning at Talladega Actually Changed
Hocevar’s breakthrough came at Talladega in the spring, his first Cup win after years of chasing one. He said the memory feels sharper now than it did in the moment, and that returning to the same track this week brought it back into focus. Friends started asking for VIP passes. His own agent wanted one too. He laughed describing it, saying he has learned to expect the requests and does not mind them.
He is also clear-eyed about what the win means long term. He said “Cup Series winner” is a label he keeps for the rest of his life regardless of how many more wins follow, unless he adds a championship to it. He cares about that distinction. A win can happen on a good day with the right strategy and a little luck at a superspeedway. A championship takes a full season, and he knows the difference between the two better than most drivers his age.
From a Quarter Midget to Autographs He Once Only Imagined
The fame that followed the win has not changed him much, by his own account, but he notices it everywhere. He signs more autographs. Strangers recognize him in places where, a year ago, nobody would have looked twice. He said he has noticed more female fans at the track, a shift he views as part of NASCAR’s fan base widening rather than anything specific to him.
He traced the feeling back to childhood, racing quarter midgets on small bullrings in Michigan long before Spire Motorsports or the Cup Series were part of his vocabulary. He said he used to wish people would recognize him back then, a small driver in a small car hoping someone in the stands knew his name. Now people do, and he has had to adjust to being on the other side of that wish. It is a detail that explains why he shrugs off the attention rather than resents it. He spent years wanting exactly this.
A Driver Intro Still Waiting to Happen
Hocevar has not planned anything for his driver introduction at Talladega, but he hinted he has ideas for something bigger down the line, the kind of entrance that only makes sense at a track built for speed and theater, like Daytona or Talladega itself. He has not committed to a concept. He simply wants the moment to match the setting when it finally happens.
He also broke down his approach to superspeedway racing, calling Talladega the hardest track on the calendar to pass on and Atlanta the easiest, even though both tracks share the same high-speed, pack-racing character. He said he does not lean on data the way some of his peers do. Instead, he adapts lap to lap, reading the draft and the cars around him rather than following a script built in a simulator the week before. He has been in contention at every drafting race this season, a run of results that outpaces where Spire Motorsports sat just a few years ago, when a top-20 finish counted as a good day.
That contrast sits at the center of who Hocevar is right now. He races like a driver with nothing to lose and talks like one who understands exactly what he has already gained. A fan vote that could carry his name into a popularity contest he does not want to win. A friendship with a champion that started with a seat on an airplane. A label, Cup Series winner, that no outcome at Martinsville or Phoenix can take away. He is not chasing a championship in 2026, and he said so without flinching. He is chasing the next clean lap, the next pass, and, if his fans listen, a vote for somebody else.
Spire Motorsports built its reputation on scrappy starts and borrowed equipment before Hocevar arrived, a single-car underdog outfit that spent years just trying to keep pace with the sport’s giants. His Talladega win gave the team its clearest signature moment yet, proof that a smaller shop could out-draft the bigger, better-funded teams in the garage on the right day. Hocevar does not talk about the team’s history much in public, but the arc is there in the numbers: a driver who learned on quarter midgets now representing an organization that had to earn every inch of its own credibility the same way he did.
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