Kyle Busch explains 'biggest problem' with Carson Hocevar

Earlier this season, Kyle Busch and Carson Hocevar had a bit of a run-in at Atlanta. Busch was furious with the young Cup Series driver. However, the relationship between these two goes back further than a few weeks ago.

While he is only 22 years old, Carson Hocevar has had a reputation as an aggressive driver for years. Most NASCAR fans were introduced to it in the Truck Series. But it didn’t start then, either.

Kevin Harvick interviewed Kyle Busch this week. He asked Rowdy about the Hocevar incident.

“I mean, you look at the Hocevar scenario, you were pissed at him at Atlanta – do you reach out to him or does he reach out to you to get better?” Harvick asked.

“Not a word,” Busch replied. Not great.

“Well, that one’s different. That’s a bad example,” Harvick said.

That’s when Kyle Busch went into the lore. It all started years ago during a super late model race in Kalamazoo.

“So, the Hocevar problem, the biggest problem I have with him is when he was 13, 14 years old whatever it was, I was racing at one of his home tracks in Michigan with a super late model while I was a Cup guy,” Busch said. “… It was Kalamazoo. Lap 8, Lap 11 somewhere early in the race, like, I wasn’t that great but I was going to bide my time and I was just riding, right? Like, you ride. He comes right up alongside of me, sideswipes me, puts me into the frontstretch fence, and goes on. And I’m like, ‘What the hell just happened?’ Never nothing after the fact, never a sorry, ‘Hey, my bad.’ Like, same thing right now. He hasn’t learned not one thing because he hasn’t been under someone’s wing this entire time.”

Kyle Busch has little patience for young drivers

There are so many drivers in that 18 to 25-year-old range right now in NASCAR. A lot of them are incredibly talented, too. Carson Hocevar is one of them. Kyle Busch has been that young driver who made everyone mad before. But things change.

Especially in the Next Gen era, Busch has been very vocal in calling out young drivers. He has not been impressed with how many of them race. There is a lot of overaggression on the race track and not a lot of concern for equipment.

Hocevar is not backing down from these older drivers. I don’t think he should. He isn’t going out and wrecking a bunch of drivers. Besides, when you see someone like Ross Chastain still making moves like he did at COTA earlier this season, can you really be upset at Hocevar?

Kyle Busch doesn’t appreciate how the young drivers race. I get that. But from a fan and media perspective, it is nice to see in NASCAR. There needs to be a young kid with a chip on his shoulder trying to prove himself. That’s a classic story in sports. Maybe Hocevar is that driver for the Cup Series right now.