CHARLOTTE, N.C. — No momentum? No problem for Carson Hocevar.
The lightning rod of the NASCAR Cup Series enters as the No. 12 seed in The Chase presented by Mobil 1 ahead of Sunday’s opener at Darlington Raceway for the Cook Out Southern 500 (5 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
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Hocevar made The Chase without a worry, but a dismal stretch of results has his No. 77 Spire Motorsports team fighting a far more uphill battle than it seemed they would face one month ago. Following the July 26 Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Hocevar ranked fifth in points, the sport’s top Chevrolet driver. His results in the next four races, however, sent him tumbling down the standings to 12th: one top-20 finish, three finishes of 31st or worse and two DNFs.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the 23-year-old driver is walking into The Chase as light as possible with no change in team morale despite a disappointing August.
“I don’t think anything’s changed,” Hocevar said Wednesday during Chase Media Day. “Like after Daytona, we gained 300 points on the leader, so it’s a pretty good points day.”
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Indeed, the points reset to begin The Chase turned a 354-point gap to No. 1 seed Denny Hamlin into just an 80-point deficit. Had Hocevar managed to hold onto the No. 5 seed, he would have started The Chase just 45 points behind Hamlin. But there’s not an ounce of concern on the face of the go-with-flow-natured Hocevar.
Some of that is built into the nature of the No. 77 team at Spire Motorsports. Crew chief Luke Lambert and competition director Matt McCall were both on the pit box for Ryan Newman and the No. 31 Richard Childress Racing team in 2014, when Newman and Co. stormed through the inaugural season of elimination-style playoffs to land an upset runner-up finish in the championship race behind Kevin Harvick. Lambert was Newman’s crew chief and McCall served as the race engineer.
“I’d say our team morale-ish or motto is more so we’re playing with house money,” Hocevar said. “Luke and Matt McCall were on that 31 team in 2014, and that’s how they approached it and they finished second. So yeah, I mean for me, I’m not even gonna look at the points. I don’t plan on looking at it until the end, and they’ll let me know when I walk up at the banquet where I finished. …
“I think they’ve embraced that kind of mantra or whatever the word is, and they’ve enjoyed it and embraced it. It’s been I think fun for all of us.”
It’s been a year full of noise surrounding Hocevar. On the rise on and off the track, the hotshot youngster nabbed his first career NASCAR Cup Series win at Talladega Superspeedway in April, creating a celebration that became an instant classic as he rode the window of his race car after the checkered flag and performed a burnout against the fence while hanging out of his race car. One week later, the Portage, Michigan, native appeared at the Met Gala in New York City, transcending the NASCAR space and landing himself among the pop-culture world.
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MORE: See Hocevar’s look at the Met Gala | People, places that shaped Hocevar
And even in the wake of a crummy month on the race track, Hocevar’s name has still remained a topic of conversation.
“It’s kind of funny. I’m not even trying to,” Hocevar said. “You know, whether we run good or bad, it seems like there’s some sort of talking point at some point. But I enjoy it. I think it’s funny a lot of times, and yeah, I mean hopefully it’s entertaining for fans and TV and everybody. Much rather them talk about something than nothing, I guess.”
As a kid who grew up obsessed with NASCAR, Hocevar still thinks “it’s crazy that anybody would buy any merch” of his, he said. Even though he’s a Cup driver 38 weekends a year, he has managed to maintain that fandom for the sport. And after a career year during the 26-race regular season that featured a career-high five top fives and tying a career-best nine top 10s so far, Hocevar is simply trying to enjoy the moment.
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“It’s been fun for for all of us,” Hocevar said. “Literally since the (Daytona) Duel, we’ve never been below the Chase cutoff. So it’s been easy per se on the cutline. Like we’ve never once thought we’re out of it or even really felt like we were close to getting knocked out. So it’s just been fun and enjoyable, and we’re just like, we’ll see if we’re higher or lower and see where it goes and just go racing and see what happens. So it’s been fun and enjoyable and we just keep working to see if we can get our cars faster.”
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