Carson Hocevar won his first NASCAR Cup Series race at Talladega (Image: Getty)
Carson Hocevar has made plenty of fans during his meteoric rise to becoming NASCAR’s hottest new star. But he hasn’t exactly made many friends in the garage along the way.
That’s never bothered him. At the start of last season, when he first spoke to Express US Sports, he explained why he isn’t afraid to ruffle feathers.
Earlier this year, he outlined his plan as the unapologetic distruptor the sport has been craving.
He has earned a reputation for an uncompromising driving style after a string of on-track run-ins. What has helped endear him to fans, however, hasn’t always gone down well with his fellow competitors.
So when he claimed his first-ever Cup Series win at Talladega last weekend, the reaction from his rivals caught him off guard. Chase Elliott, among others, stepped away from a media interview to make sure he could congratulate him on the way to Victory Lane. Others joined him amid the confetti, while some who had already left after being caught up in a massive crash made sure to send a message.
“It was unexpected, honestly, for me,” Hocevar admits to Express US Sports. “So I was really appreciative of it.
“Between the guys kind of waving at me coming to pit road, but also the guys that stopped on pit road or came to Victory Lane or texted me like that. It was super cool for all of them to do. I didn’t expect it.”
Hocevar had plenty of people congratulate him on his first win (Image: Getty)
Another surprise was the response from the packed grandstands at one of NASCAR’s most raucous tracks. Even now, Hocevar finds himself scrolling through countless videos of his celebration, hanging out of his No. 77 car and soaking it all in.
“There’s just so many of them,” he says. “They’re all just fun to watch.
“Every time I scroll, I feel like I find a new angle, which has probably been my favorite part. There’s always just a different angle.
“I had a lot of friends in the grandstands. And one of the coolest parts was, sometimes I was scrolling, and I would hear my friends. I have their video and everything, but it was the people next to them, or the people, you know, right near them.
“I just kind of laughed. My friends obviously are going to have a good reaction. But even the people just right next to them that I’m sure they didn’t even talk to, or know that I know them.
“There’s a little girl who has a 77 hat on, and she was crying, and, you know, she was literally right next to my group of friends that were up there. That one was cool.”
Hocevar’s unique and memorable celebration sent fans wild (Image: Getty)
Moments after climbing from his car, his thoughts turned to home in Michigan. He paid tribute to his grandmother, who passed away last year, and spoke of his pride in taking a trophy home to his grandfather.
As the confetti settled and the photos stopped in Victory Lane, he finally got to make an emotional call home.
“It wasn’t until after we took a lot of the photos that I got to call my mom and call my family and get a hold of them a little bit,” he recalls. “Super, super fun to be able to get to hear them and talk to them after.”
The impact of his win was immediate. The Lionel Racing website crashed as fans flocked to order his first-ever win diecast, while photos on social media showed huge crowds gathered around the Spire Motorsports hauler.
“I definitely heard about that,” he says. “So it’s just wild to me that so many people wanted to, obviously, get the diecast, but just spend any bit of money on anything that has my name or anything attached to me.”
As someone who grew up playing with diecasts, he’ll be adding one to his own collection.
“Yeah, that would be definitely the coolest thing to have,” he says.
Back in those days, dreaming of a future in the sport, Hocevar was idolizing Dale Earnhardt Jr. After missing his win at his local track, Michigan, in 2012, snapping a 143-race winless streak, he felt the chance to see his favorite driver win had gone.
While the relief and elation of Hocevar’s first win was shared by so many of his fans in the stands, he still vividly remembers being on the other side of that fan-driver relationship.
He recalls: “I remember watching Dale Jr. I was a fan kind of when he was struggling a little bit, and so I didn’t see him win too often, but he finally won Michigan, and that was the one year I didn’t get to go as a kid.
“So I was always super bummed that I was never going to see Junior win in person. And I just happened to be there for the 500 in 2014.
“We almost left, almost went home, just because of how the weather was looking. It looked like it was going to get canceled on Monday.
“I convinced my parents to let us stay until Sunday night to at least see if it finished, and just happened to be able to catch him winning.
“Then, when he does donuts, it was right in front of where I was sitting. I remember being so excited. That was probably gonna be the only opportunity I’d ever get a shot of seeing Dale win.”
Hocevar shared a photo of him celebrating seeing Dale Jr win the Daytona 500 (Image: Carson Hocevar)
While that was Hocevar’s only chance to see Dale Earnhardt Jr. head to Victory Lane, he now hopes to give his own fans many more opportunities to watch him win.
With the breakthrough finally behind him, he believes more victories will follow.
“The hardest one is the first one,” he says. “And now you’re just a little bit more relaxed.
“Going from one to two is a lot different than zero to one. Feeling like you just want it to be today, and you end up making a mistake or going too hard or trying to force it and not letting it come to you.
“I mean, you’re never going to be thinking about and just trying to force it.”
Hocevar hopes it will be the first of many wins (Image: Getty)
He still vividly remembers the closing laps at Talladega. After narrowly avoiding a 26-car wreck earlier in the race, he found himself perfectly positioned for a late restart, holding off a charging Chris Buescher and the chasing pack.
“I remember every bit of it,” he says. “Feeling really good with where we were positioned on the restarts and everything.
“I just felt like it was just written for us. You can kind of tell on superspeedways. The stories kind of write themselves. And you could just tell, with a few laps to go, I felt like it was gonna be our name written on it.”
As the dust settles on the moment he has dreamed of all his life, how does it compare to his expectations?
“I’ve just enjoyed every second of it,” he declares. “And yeah, just truly, it feels exactly how I dreamt it would.”