Everyone has had something to say about Carson Hocevar this week.
The driver of the No. 77 was already the most heavily scrutinized driver in the Cup Series, and his spin out of Brad Keselowski at the Southern 500, and his subsequent shrugging off of the contact, only added more fuel to the fire.
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Hocevar has gotten heat from his fellow drivers, the media, and plenty of fans. But he’s also generated a ton of buzz for NASCAR, and sold a whole lot of t-shirts.
While the majority of the NASCAR media landscape has focused on their critiques of Hocevar, Dale Earnhardt Jr. was rather complimentary of what he brings to the sport, to a point where he left his co-hosts on the Dale Jr. Download momentarily speechless while mounting a defense of the No. 77.
“I don’t know man. I like a lot of what I see,” Earnhardt said. “We need the rivalries, the entertainment of it. We do. And he’s providing it. If you pulled Hocevar out of the field entirely, I don’t know if I like it as much as him involved in it.”
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Earnhardt’s only note for Hocevar was that he’d like to know whether or not his run-in with Keselowski was a mistake, but didn’t have any problem with the attitude he had on display.
“I don’t have anything that I would tell him to do differently other than I would love to know if he f***ed up or did he do that on purpose. I don’t think he’s going to tell us that. I could probably call him and have that conversation with him privately.”
Both of Earnhardt’s co-hosts—TJ Majors, Dale’s former spotter who happens to be Keselowski’s current spotter, and producer Travis Rockhold—appeared rather stunned with Earnhardt’s support for Hocevar, and pushed him to at least admit that he would step in and talk to Hocevar if he were driving for his own team.
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“If he was going to drive my car tomorrow, I would say you can’t do that sh*t in my car,” Earnhardt said. “If he was going to drive my car I would say, ‘Dude don’t run into anybody. I don’t need that sh*t. It’s not good for my company to be in the middle of it.’ But he’s not driving my car.”
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Earnhardt is right that NASCAR needs rivalries and villains to make the sport its most compelling, and it is completely undeniable that Hocevar is helping on that front. When he says he would probably be less into the current Cup Series product if Hocevar wasn’t in the field, he is speaking for a not-insignificant portion of fans.
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“Our sport needs this, whatever you want to call it. Drama. Entertainment. Controversy. Whatever you want to call it. And he’s delivering it,” Earnhardt said. “I wish there were four or five more Hocevare’s in the field — maybe if there were, we wouldn’t be complaining as much. Wouldn’t always be one guy. Get three or four more out there we’d be entertained to death.”
While his co-hosts were surprised with how long a leash Earnhardt seemed to be willing to give Hocevar (as long as he wasn’t driving for his team, of course), it’s possible that the real surprise is that we haven’t seen more people come to a similar conclusion as Earnhardt.
You can like Hocevar or dislike him, but if you’re following NASCAR right now, you’re certainly talking about him.
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