Carson Hocevar, driver of the No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet, met with the media in advance of the NASCAR Cup Series practice and qualifying session at World Wide Technology Raceway.

Media Availability Quotes:

Another reason you’re probably in here is because this is the track that gave you a big break in a way, but I’d also like to know why you are addicted to buying cars that look like NASCAR’s now. Is your accountant okay with this? Why is this happening? I

“I’ve always wanted street legal cars as a kid. Kalamazoo Speedway, where I was from, the owner had one of the Intimidator SS’s and I thought that was like the coolest thing in the world. Every time I look at Facebook Marketplace, it seems like there’s more and more coming up. Either my algorithms knowing it or people are making these cars knowing I’ll probably buy them. I was literally in the hauler a minute ago looking at another one. I just enjoy cars, but I enjoy NASCAR’s, too. It’s a lot of fun when you drive it. The Dale truck — I blew a tire and I think I got 100 honks and ‘hell yeahs’, ‘Go Dale’ and stuff like that. I haven’t driven the Oldsmobile yet on the road, so I’m curious about that reaction. It’s pretty awesome. It’s a history of NASCAR, but also it’s super fun. The first time I drove the Dale truck, I had about six people walk over to me. I was stuck at a gas station for an hour. We just talked NASCAR. I think that’s what I’ve most enjoyed with it.”

I understand you’re going to be part of a new documentary called ‘Rising’ that kind of chronicles three up-and-coming drivers in the circuit. I’m curious to hear your thoughts on that and just your overall racing journey from creating stop motions as a kid to being a Cup Series driver now…

“Yeah, ultimately you always want to show people more of the insights and everything. I remember as a kid buying every DVD I could find of mini-docs. I think Kasey Kahen had one. Tony (Stewart) had one. Dale Earnhardt Jr. had plenty, and obviously Dale Earnhardt Sr. had a lot of them.

That’s what made me a fan of a lot of drivers or really just keep in racing. The more we can do of that as a sport is big, and for me to be a part of it is super cool. It’s been a lot of fun to open up a lot on that. I’m just excited for a lot of people to see it when it comes out.”

You made some headlines last week with some contact with the No. 9 car. Have you all discussed that or is it kind of just in the past and move forward to Gateway?

“Yeah, I mean you just move on. It was super early. It didn’t affect either one of us I don’t think too bad. You just move on. One thinks you’re going to give a little bit of extra room, and the other you’re trying to kind of play a pick. I think that’s just racing.”

Have you ever thought about having iRacing as a sponsor livery or like a future partnership? “Yeah, I mean it would be cool, for sure, because obviously I use it a lot. But for how I drive on iRacing, I don’t think I’m their brightest shining ambassador they would want, per se a little bit, so I kind of understand that too.”

I imagine I probably know the answer, but I know Christopher (Bell) was a little upset with the scenario in pit road last week. I’m just wondering, was there any conversations with your team from him that you’re aware of or not?

“Yeah, my crew chief (Luke Lambert) and Adam Stevens talked and they were all good. Obviously, you know heat of the moment, everybody can share their frustration, but they talked and they were all good. Drivers, most of the time on pit road, are kind of just blind, per se, right? It’s more on the crew chiefs from that aspect to guide us in and out, so they had that conversation and I think they’re plenty good moving forward.”

Do you remember the buzz surrounding your Cup debut here?

“I do, yeah. I remember a lot of that that day. It was a lot of fun. It’s pretty crazy what it was like. I don’t know if there was a lot of buzz at the start, but I remember when I got out of the car, there was a lot of moving pieces on my end that it was all a very quick 180 of trying to sign an extension on my truck deal to legitimately getting the conversation started about driving a Cup car within 70 laps, which was pretty wild.”

In a lot of cases, when you have an opportunity like that, some guys — I mean on the other side of that, Corey (LaJoie) had a great opportunity that day but you were in secondary equipment and really kind of started making a name for yourself. At what point did that sink in?

“I mean I was just very nervous about being slow. If I wrecked or ran 30th, I think it wouldn’t have been a shock, but if I ran really fast, I think that would have been the shock and the needle mover, per se. Luckily when the brake rotor broke, I was moving forward and we were like 15th or 16th, which I thought helped me a little bit theoretically because like a month later, it was like we were running eighth-place lap times. And then like two months later, the stories were that we were going to run top-five. And then you know six months later, we were going to win the race. I’m like — these are getting out of control a little bit. But it kind of helped a little bit of just kind of that ‘what-if’ aspect that I thought may Spire Motorsports hungrier to be aggressive and want to make that change for me being in the No. 77. I would have liked to see how that day played out, but honestly, I thought it couldn’t work out any better.”

I talked to Kyle Busch last week and he said when he races in the Xfinity and Truck Series against those drivers — when they can keep up with him, when they can beat him, when they can contend with him, he knows that they’re ready to make the jump. What did you feel when you were racing against Cup guys that would come to Truck and how would you kind of grade yourself against them?

“Yeah, I mean I think any time you’re racing a Cup driver in Trucks or Xfinity, you know ultimately their owners are watching that and that’s how they really grade it. When there are no Cup guys in the field, I mean you could win 10 of them but if you if you go 0-10 — you know, split half and half, you go 10-0 against no Cup guys but you go 0-10 against Cup guys, I think that’s what a lot of teams really look at. You’re still really good but I think that is a true grade. (Jeff) Dickerson and I talk about it all the time because obviously he was an agent in there and he was there when the top-10 of Xfinity would be all Cup guys and — you’d be lucky to run 12th and you’d be pumped because you’re best in class. So yeah, I don’t think we need to get back there but I definitely think it would make it a lot easier. You know, I’m here because I got to go join the Cup field and race against them; got thrown to the deep end and I didn’t sink right away. So yeah, I think that’s the biggest thing is if I never got that shot, I would just be hoping Cup guys would come run Trucks and maybe I can outrun them. I remember Sonoma when I won the pole, there were like four Cup guys right behind me and that Truck pole meant a lot more because of that.”

This is a narrow pit road… I think the tightest on the circuit. What’s the challenge? What’s it like on from the driver’s perspective?

“I mean, I just wrecked last week on pit road, so I’m pumped now that you say that (laughs).

It’s so tough now because we pit a lot more. Somebody asked me a while ago because it was becoming like every week that there were accidents or issues on pit road – you just think everybody’s so much more competitive now. I remember watching Cup races and there’d be nine to 14 guys on the lead lap and they all picked not even close to each other. And now, there will be 32 on the lead lap and you pit 10 times together because there’s stages and cautions. There’s less green flag stops. We’ll go weeks — I remember the first eight races, I was like, shoot I haven’t even done a green flag stop… I don’t really remember how to do it. So I think that’s the biggest thing that makes it even more challenging but I just think it’s maybe less because it’s so normal now to come down pit road; there’s 32 guys and they’re all competitive too. The stops are faster too… you know, they’re not sitting there for 14 to 17 seconds and the bad guys are maybe 18 to 19 seconds. I mean, the dead last place car is still pitting nine-second pit stops. It’s just so competitive, from the pit stops to the drivers and the cars now, that I think it’s just so common now. When you tighten it up like this, we’re kind of used to it now.”

To come back from a spin and finish top-10 at a place like Darlington, how personally significant was that to you, or was that more of a – boy, what could have been if I didn’t spin? How did you look at it last week?

“I mean, I don’t know. The Toyota’s were super-fast. So yeah, I don’t think there was any like ‘what-ifs’. I think the only ‘what-ifs’ is if we could have ran best in class, from the Chevy aspect, to run like fifth or sixth versus ninth. But yeah, I was still really happy with that and the turnaround — to be able to go from like pretty good to the worst driving car I felt like I’ve ever had for a minute and then we put two-tenths of air or something and be pretty good right.

I think that’s really been our year a little bit, is just being able to — I always mentioned Jeff (Dickerson) but I mean he’s just who I talk to 24-7; he’s really big on the really good teams, they might have a total cluster of a day and the other guys are laughing at them or pointing and just like, man they’re terrible, but at the end of it, they look at the scoreboard and they’re like how did they finish single digits. He used the No. 5 car as an example at times. He’ll have adversity a lot of the day and then all of a sudden he’s sixth, seventh or eighth and that’s where we’ve been trying to mimic per se. For us to be able to do that I think was important on a day that I felt like Chevy, but also Hendrick Motorsports, we just kind of all missed it a little bit.”

GM PR