Joey Logano broke an 11-year winless streak at Bristol as he continued his monumental run from 20th in the standings following Sonoma to a true fight for a fourth championship in a year that all seemed lost — but that’s not what anybody is talking about tonight in the Volunteer State.
As Logano celebrated on the frontstretch, boos poured down from the stands, some maybe for him but more for the polarizing fight between his Penske teammate Ryan Blaney and the most polarizing character in the sport, Carson Hocevar.
Hocevar has been the center of NASCAR’s debate about retribution since the first race of the NASCAR Chase during the Southern 500 at Darlington earlier this month. Following that race, 2012 NASCAR Cup Series Champion Brad Keselowski said that Hocevar crashed into him and that “His day is coming, and it’s coming hard; watch out, Carson.”
This sparked a week of media frenzy ahead of the second Chase race at WWT Raceway outside St. Louis. In a record-breaking caution-filled race, Hocevar found himself outside of the headlines, not bringing out one of the many cautions.
Bristol was a lot louder. The 23-year-old, chasing his second career win, dumped the 2023 NASCAR Cup Champion entering a corner. Post-race and post-fight, Hocevar said he wasn’t trying to wreck Blaney and that the No. 12 driver wrecked himself.
“I don’t know what I did wrong there,” Hocevar said. “I got a run to cross him over. He looked like he spun himself, and then he wanted to instigate a fight. So I was going to finish that, and it seemed like the crowd was pretty pumped up, so I was going to play the audience for a second.”
Earlier in the same interview, he admitted to being the cause of Blaney’s spin.
“I don’t know. I wasn’t trying to wreck him. It just looked like, to me, I got a run and kind of went left, and he spun, and I spun him. There wasn’t a whole lot of talking. He just kind of said one thing and then went after me, and I wasn’t going to take it. I mean, that was fun with the 54. I got ran into a lot for the win. I mean, that was for second, and he wants to come fight.”
The No. 54 was also not very happy with Hocevar post-race. Ty Gibbs fell to fifth after his fourth restart battle with Hocevar, having looked to defend his Spring race win at Bristol and honor Kyle Busch while in an M&M livery as the candy brand returned for a one-off race. In between Blaney getting tackled to the ground by members of the No. 77 Spire Motorsports pit crew and him sneaking back to land a final punch on Hocevar, a water bottle came flying into frame — thrown by Gibbs.
The causality of the crash will remain in question. It can be argued that Blaney entering the corner shouldn’t have cut down, not knowing that the driver he was battling would give him the line, especially since Hocevar has a history of not lifting in exactly this situation. Blaney agreed with that assessment when answering SiriusXM’s Lee Spencer about what he could have done differently.
“Understand who was beneath me,” Blaney answered. “I guess. But I mean, I protected pretty early. And he just kept coming left and never lifted, and I crashed.”
Had Blaney hugged the wall entering the corner, he would have lost his newly gained second place, but he would have been in a position to battle for it again rather than ending up in the wall and out of the race.
NASCAR, while using fights as a prominent part of their social media promotion of the series, has a firm line drawn about fighting, as Ricky Stenhouse Jr. found out two springs ago after starting a brawl at the All-Star Race with the late Kyle Busch and their crews. Stenhouse was fined $75,000 for throwing the first punch, and drivers have mostly kept their hands to themselves since.
Corey Heim, who is on record for not liking Hocevar, is also now on record saying that even if NASCAR comes down on his rival, he is against drivers getting fined for letting off aggression post-race. Many drivers have spoken negatively about the fee, including Zane Smith, who on the Bussin’ with the Boys podcast a few months ago asked one of the co-hosts to pay the fine if he ever punched Hocevar.
That comment led Hocevar to launch his trend of t-shirt sale retribution, turning viral controversy into merchandise promotions and social media engagement. At Chicagoland, Hocevar offered free shirts to fans willing to trade in their favorite driver’s shirt off their backs. Two weeks ago, following his spat with Keselowski, he added a 6% discount to an ongoing merchandise promotion and reported record sales, according to the Sports Business Journal.
This week, Hocevar announced a 12% discount for the next 12 hours following his fight with Blaney. If Blaney is hit with a NASCAR fine — and possibly an FCC fine for an on-air expletive during his televised post-race interview — the gap between what each driver takes away from this pit road confrontation, financially and otherwise, could be staggering.
