Corey LaJoie weighs in on perception of teammate Carson Hocevar in aftermath of Harrison Burton dust-up

There have been some high-profile incidents in NASCAR the past couple weeks, the kind that have triggered $50,000 fines for a couple drivers, including Carson Hocevar and Bubba Wallace.

Hocevar was fined $50,000 for getting into Harrison Burton during a caution at Nashville.

His teammate, Corey LaJoie, opened up on the incident, pointing out that while it looked bad on the in-car camera view from Todd Gilliland, it probably wasn’t as bad as it truly appeared.

“Yeah he is super fast, super aggressive. But I think, I’ll agree with that take to an extent, where you watch the video and you’re like, ‘Oooh, that doesn’t look good,'” LaJoie said on his Stacking Pennies podcast. “Then you look at SMT and you kind of scrub through it and you see the 21 hitting the brakes. At the same time the 77 hits his bumper and it looks less incriminating on SMT, but there’s only 50 people that can see SMT, right?”

In other words, the perception of Carson Hocevar will be more negatively impacted by the view that fans saw rather than the SMT looks at it. But perception is reality, in many ways.

“The majority of people, and also, Harrison Burton’s dad in the booth talking about it, the millions of people can only see that,” LaJoie said.

LaJoie’s co-host on the podcast, NASCAR tire-changer Ryan Flores, pointed out that the video leading up to the event doesn’t paint a pretty picture for Hocevar. Flores noted Carson Hocevar was running cars all over the racetrack in a previous caution.

Ryan Flores says Bubba Wallace is hurting himself

In the same vein, Bubba Wallace’s contact with Alex Bowman following the Grant Park 165 in Chicago alo triggered a $50,000 penalty.

Wallace slammed Bowman for an earlier incident on the track that caused Wallace to hit the wall and lose a lot of valuable track positioning. But that alone wasn’t necessarily enough to trigger the outburst in Flores’ mind.

“That’s what I wonder with Bubba, like OK, is there more underlying circumstances that have happened with the 48 this year?” Flores said. “Is that why he’s so frustrated? But still, it’s a tough look to run into the leader two hours after it happens.”

Of course, Wallace isn’t the only one who’s been prone to a little frustration on the track this year. Carson Hocevar also has been in that boat.