Austin Dillon says Carson Hocevar was 'all over the place' prior to wreck at Talladega

During Sunday’s race at Talladega, Austin Dillon found himself in the wall after a bad push from Brad Keselowski to Carson Hocevar. Keselowski is one of the best superspeedway drivers in NASCAR, and a great driver to have pushing you. He’s also caused a few incidents while pushing.

For Brad Keselowski, every car looks as good as his car in the draft. If he’s moving up, he’ll push whoever is in front of him. Over the course of the playoffs, Carson Hocevar has been a really strong racer. He’s been top-20 in every race, until his DNF yesterday.

After getting caught up in the wreck, Austin Dillon had some lightly harsh criticism for Hocevar. According to him, the 42 car didn’t look good all day. I’ll add in the fact that Hocevar, a fill-in who will likely be a rookie in 2024, has outperformed Dillon in every playoff race leading up to Talladega.

“I got out of the middle line because of the 42 I don’t know if he had a new spotter or what, he was all over the place,” Dillon said, via Bob Pockrass of Fox Sports. “Brad [Keselowski] said he pushed him too hard and wrecked him, so we had a hard hit. Sucks our Bass Pro Shops Chevy was good.”

Apparently, Austin Dillon saw it coming the entire race.

“I had the benefit to see the 42 all over the place like when he was by himself. I surely seen it most of the day I didn’t think the 42 was very good for anybody to be around. So, that’s what you get when you push when there’s no need to push at that point.”

Austin Dillon wasn’t happy with the way the wreck he was collected in developed as he felt Brad Keselowski shouldn’t have tried to push Carson Hocevar at that point. He explains why: pic.twitter.com/Xhiovj0Fk9

— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) October 2, 2023

Does Austin Dillon have a point here or is it a case of looking for someone to blame?

Austin Dillon leads Cup Series in DNFs

There are no drivers with more DNFs than Austin Dillon this year. He’s been involved in 10 wrecks this season that have taken him out of more than a fourth of races the year. That’s not a great percentage.

I’m not so sure that this is more than frustration from Dillon. No matter who was involved in that wreck, he probably puts the blame elsewhere. Then again, he was minding his own business at the time of the wreck and likely deserves to be a little upset.

It can’t help to have this younger driver come in and start beating you in a car that struggled to make the top-25 most weeks prior. Does it help that Hocevar is also allegedly taking that Spire Motorsports No. 77 seat from Ty Dillon in 2024? I’ll leave that for you to decide.

Another weekend and another disappointment for Austin Dillon. He is one of the many drivers looking forward to the offseason and 2024.