Carson Hocevar reflects on support from NASCAR legends ahead of COTA

While we have seen many drivers back down from controversy, Carson Hocevar is not going to let it happen. He’s embracing it. Hocevar has his second NASCAR Cup Series season starting with excitement.

Last week at Atlanta Carson Hocevar was willing to risk it all. He wanted to make the big move to put himself in the lead and win the race. He was about a couple of seconds off from being in the lead when the caution came out.

Hocevar took time to speak with Jamie McMurray ahead of this Sunday’s race. Turns out, he has more support out there from the NASCAR world than we thought. A lot of heavy hitters went to bat for Hocevar.

“There’s been a bunch of people that reached out, but they’ve all been good to have. Having the support from Kevin Harvick, Mr. H, Jeff Gordon, Hendrick Motorsports have called, Mark Martin – who is known as the most respectful racecar driver of all time – he reached out to me and he was publicly on Twitter saying we were doing a really good job and to just do our own thing,” Hocevar told Jamie McMurray. “So, I want to have a bunch of shots to win races like Atlanta because it’s eventually going to work out.”

Every time Carson Hocevar has talked about Atlanta, I have liked him more and more. He is a great young driver that this series needs. Go back and look at all of the best, young drivers in the Cup Series – all of them were tagged as overly aggressive, immature, not knowing what they were doing.

When the wins start to come, all of that talk will go away.

Carson Hocevar: ‘I race for me, myself, and I’

Carson Hocevar is an aggressive driver. He always has been. At age 22 he is embarking on his second Cup Series season and he may have made a couple of enemies.

You won’t hear any apologizing from Hocevar, though. Today, he put that Atlanta controversy to bed with his comments.

Here is what he said about his practice laps at COTA.

“I mean hopefully, maybe a little bit better,” Hocevar explained. “I wasn’t really happy with my lap but normally when you’re not happy and you actually have a lot of speed that’s normally a good thing on these road courses it seems, at least for me.”

Then he was asked about Atlanta.

“You know I just like racing and I’m there to race and I’m excited to race here, and I’m excited to have fast race cars,” Carson Hocevar continued. “I’m going to continue to try and do that. So, it’s been a lot of fun and you know, been a lot of positives from Hendrick Motorsports to Chevy and most importantly, my team. So, I race for me, myself, and I and you know, obviously a little bit for Spire Motorsports for sure. That’s what they pay me to do and that’s what we’re here to do and we’re here to win races.”