Dale Earnhardt Jr. dives deep on the biggest problem with Carson Hocevar in NASCAR Cup Series

Dale Earnhardt Jr. delivered a fascinating deep dive into the biggest problem Carson Hocevar is currently facing in the NASCAR Cup Series.

During the latest episode of The Dale Jr Download following Hocevar’s controversial, ultra-aggressive performance this past weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Earnhardt Jr. tried to make sense of the situation the Spire Motorsports wheelman has found himself in, and explain why he’s catching so much heat at the moment.

“This is the thing, the sport needs personalities. It needs things that stand out, and drivers that we can depend on to kind of go against the norms,” Earnhardt Jr. prefaced. “We had that in Ross Chastain. We had that in other drivers, as well. They improve, and they polish the rough edges. They become more well-rounded, complete race car drivers. Ross has changed a lot as a race car driver. He doesn’t put himself in situations that are upsetting other drivers as often, if at all anymore.

“He’s still one of the most aggressive defenders of his position in the field. He is absolutely, through looking at statistics, real data, the best defender. There’s nobody better. So, he still has the skills that he always possessed, but he just doesn’t make as much noise anymore. He doesn’t want to be the guy that we’re walking up and interviewing in a rain delay going, ‘Hey man, who have you pissed off today?’ He hated that. He hated that attention, and he didn’t like that narrative about him. Hocevar sort of has that same thing, if not a little bit more going on.”

While the NASCAR Hall of Fame Inductee believes Hocevar is racing with the best of intentions, he thinks the young driver will have to clean up his act a little bit, even if he doesn’t want to see his aggressiveness completely neutered.

“The problem with Hocevar, and he’ll just have to own this and understand that it’s going to be a little bit noisy for a while, but this is the reason why. I want to believe the best in people. I want to believe everybody’s got a good intention or a good agenda or whatever, and I want to believe that about Carson,” Earnhardt Jr. stated. “I think he actually is a good person after having the conversations with him. He’s not a brat, not a little shit, not a punk.

“Now, when he drives a race car, he may get a little punky, a little bratty, a little, you know — but so does [Joey] Logano and some other people. They change a little bit between being out of the car and in the car. The personality changes. They drive you, they race differently than you would expect as how they act off the track. Logano is a super nice guy. Awesome. Great with the media. But when he’s on the racetrack, completely different person. He’s not your friend.

“I like that Hocevar had those comments, ‘Hey, I’m not here to be buddies.’ He has speed. He has impressed with his speed. He’s overachieved since he’ve gotten into the Cup Series. As long as he continues to do that, there will be a little bit of a longer leash in terms of if he’s truly, genuinely making mistakes on the racetrack.

“As long as he’s fast, his owners, people around him in his camp, will say, ‘Hey, man, you’re going to get better, smarter. You’re going to clean up some of this stuff, and the speed will be there, and then the race wins will come.'”

Dale Earnhardt Jr. on Carson Hocevar: ‘I wish there were some more guys like him out there’

One of the things working against Hocevar is his past in the NASCAR Truck Series, as he developed a reputation for wrecking his peers. Earnhardt Jr. recognized that the fact that it precedes him isn’t helping his situation during his second full-time season in the Cup Series.

“The problem with him is his past,” the two-time Daytona 500 winner added. “I believe that he did some things that he shouldn’t have done when he was racing in the Truck Series and so forth. He turned a few people on purpose, and it was a bad look, and he stood out because he was kind of the only guy really blatantly doing this. That stuff will follow you for a while. … All the things he was doing in the truck race at Phoenix. It was desperate to try to do whatever he could. He crossed the line a couple of times.

“If that never happened, I think we’re really not as hard on him today, and I don’t think the drivers would be as hard on him either. They wouldn’t love what he’s doing. They would still have comments post-race, but I think they would be softened a little bit. Since he has this history, even though he says, ‘Hey, I’ve changed, I’m no longer like that, I’m no longer going to be doing those things,’ that’s great, and I believe him. But it still is his past. Since he has that history, he’s not going to get the grace that maybe some other drivers might get in this scenario. I think that that’s probably why he’s spotlighted a little bit more.”

All told, Earnhardt Jr. can sympathize with drivers like Kyle Busch and Ryan Blaney when looking at it from a driver’s perspective, but as a broadcaster and a fan? He’s enjoying the way Hocevar is racing, and hoping that he doesn’t change too much when it’s all said and done.

“I’m sure if I was in Kyle Busch’s car and saw what Kyle Busch saw, I would probably have the same frustration. But as a viewer and a fan, I just see a guy trying to do everything he can to win,” Earnhardt Jr. elaborated. “Yeah, he knocked the hell out of some people, and he’s moving on, changing lanes and dooring people, and he’s wild. But he’s a rookie. He’s young. Well, he’s not technically a rookie, but he’s young. And I just feel like — he’s fast. He’s going to be here. He’s going to stick around.

“The veterans need to get him in the headlock in the garage and say, ‘Look, man, you’re great. You got talent. You need to clean this up,’ you know? And he will. He’ll want to earn the respect of his peers, even though he says differently post-race, you know, ‘I ain’t here to make friends.’ He does want his peers to respect him. We all want that.

“… But I got to tell you, and I hesitate to say this because I don’t want to really annoy the other drivers, but man, as a broadcaster and as a race fan, I wish there were some more guys like him out there.”

Time will tell what the future holds for Carson Hocevar, but he’ll have another shot at proving himself this weekend in Austin, as the NASCAR Cup Series heads to COTA. Dale Earnhardt Jr. and many throughout the motorsports world will be watching to see how he does, as he’s certainly grabbed their attention at the moment.