NASCAR insiders surprisingly praises Carson Hocevar driving style after Atlanta drama

Carson Hocevar has caught a ton of flack for his driving during Sunday’s Ambetter Health 400 at Atlanta, but Jeff Gluck of The Athletic is refusing to disparage him.

Drivers like Ryan Blaney and Kyle Busch weren’t appreciative of the Spire Motorsports wheelman, and made multiple comments about it during and after the race came to a close. As the dust settles on Hocevar’s runner-up finish in Georgia, Gluck took to his podcast, The Teardown, to defend the 22-year-old.

“Is it such a bad thing the way Carson Hocevar races?” Gluck questioned. “I don’t see him wrecking anybody. He was making some — I was watching his in-car camera, right? It was so fun. He’s making slicing, dicing moves. He is boldly, aggressively going to the front. He is, like — I guess he’s not following sort of like the etiquette, or maybe he’s leaving people hanging out to dry. He’s probably not working with people very well at all. He’s very much on his own, right? But like, what do we care? That’s the show.

“Everybody’s like, ‘Hocevar, oh my gosh, this guy. He’s a menace. He’s such a menace.’ I could see if I was a driver, I’d feel that way. But like, seems pretty entertaining to me. I kind of want guys to race like that. He doesn’t care if he’s making friends. He doesn’t care, you know, like — he doesn’t care if he ruffles feathers. He’s like, ‘Oh, sorry, I finished second.’ Eventually, I’m sure it’ll get beaten out of him, just like it seems to have for [Ross] Chastain or anybody else. Again, what do we care? We’re here for the show.

“Why am I going to get on here and go, ‘I tell you what, Carson Hocevar, I really hope he cleans up his driving. He really needs to listen to those veterans. He’s really making them angry, and it’s not going to work out for him.’ I’m not going to say that.”

Continuing, Gluck took it one step further, wondering if Hocevar is the type of driver NASCAR desperately needs at the moment: “I just think it’s — NASCAR needs more drivers like this, in my opinion,” he added.

“… The way he races, the way he drives, if you’re not wrecking people, who cares? I mean, I get it. The drivers care. I’m just saying, from — if we’re not in the car, why do we care? Why should we care about this? We should be enjoying it. We should be like, ‘Oh, this is awesome. Oh my gosh.’ Like, that’s how I’m looking at it.”

Alas, Carson Hocevar was certainly one of the more exciting drivers to watch on Sunday, but it’ll be interesting to see if he dials it back a bit moving forward after coming close to his first career victory in the Cup Series. He’s handled criticism well in the past, but it’s anyone’s guess where he goes from here.