Spire Motorsports co-owner Jeff Dickerson responded to criticism he and his team are “unserious” and “don’t seem to care” during a podcast appearance Thursday, defending both his organization and star driver Carson Hocevar after a controversial weekend.
“Of course we care,” Dickerson said. “Do we want Carson running into people? No, we don’t. We don’t have a play sheet that includes, ‘Let’s run into anything,’ including the wall. Let alone somebody else.
“But two things can be true. We support Carson 100 percent. … I think Carson feels that support. It is also true we have tough conversations — apparently every Monday now or every Tuesday, it feels like.”
Carson Hocevar earns first Cup victory in dramatic finish at Talladega
Hocevar, the rising NASCAR star nicknamed the “Hurricane” for both his frequent on-track run-ins and his raw speed, has found himself in a series of recent incidents that have once again angered his competitors.
The latest was Brad Keselowski, who was wrecked by Hocevar on Sunday night at Darlington Raceway and then angrily told Above The Yellow Line Media, “His day is coming, and it’s coming hard. Watch out, Carson.”
Hocevar was unapologetic after the incident and even made light of it, offering an additional 6 percent off merchandise in his online store — the No. 6 being Keselowski’s car number.
The nonchalant reaction led to criticism of Hocevar that extended to Spire and Dickerson, with former drivers-turned-pundits questioning why no one at Spire sat Hocevar down and scolded him.
“They don’t seem to care,” USA Sports analyst Jeff Burton said on Sunday’s postrace show. “They seem to be OK with it. I’m not going to question Jeff Dickerson and the ownership. You would have to think at some point, they would say, ‘Look, enough’s enough,’ but to this point, publicly anyway, they don’t seem to care a whole lot.”
Dickerson said those talks with his driver do happen, but, “We don’t put out a press release every time we have a talk with Carson or we discipline Carson on something.
“Essentially they’re saying, ‘Will you just change him? Don’t you know that there’s a script that these guys follow? Don’t you know they come in like this, but they eventually get neutered?’” Dickerson said. “Just so we’re all clear, that’s not what we’re going to do. We’re not trying to change Carson.
“This is not going to be another carcass of a personality that we’re going to put out by the (curb), and we’re going to get him in a polo shirt and we’re going to get him in khakis. That’s not what’s about to happen. So if that’s what everybody’s expecting from us, I’m sorry.”
Jeff Dickerson, Spire Motorsports co-owner, said he won’t try to corral his young driver. (Jeffrey Vest / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
That said, Dickerson said he doesn’t want Hocevar running into other drivers because it’s unnecessary and said it was important for Hocevar to stay in the headlines for positive reasons instead of controversial ones (“Can we have some clean weeks, please?” he said. “Can the PR staff like have one Monday off?”).
But the perception that no one is reining in Hocevar has become prevalent and led NASCAR Cup Series points leader Denny Hamlin to say this week on his “Actions Detrimental” podcast that there were “no adults in the room” at Spire and the organization was “unserious.”
“We’re serious enough to sue, apparently,” Dickerson responded, referring to a lawsuit brought by Joe Gibbs Racing over a former employee who left for Spire.
Dickerson added, perhaps tongue-in-cheek, that he was taking Hamlin’s comments “as a warning” because “Denny knows what it looks like when you don’t confront things like this.” He then referenced the New Hampshire race last season in which Hamlin complained about JGR teammate Ty Gibbs after they clashed on the track, leaving Hamlin saying on the team radio, “Are they afraid to talk to him? That’s what I feel like — they’re scared of him.”
“That’s essentially what he’s saying to me: Are you guys going to talk to him or not?” Dickerson said. “Denny’s got a PhD in this, and I’m not going to have what happened at JGR happen to Spire. And it hasn’t.”
As for Keselowski’s comments threatening to wreck Hocevar’s No. 77 car in retaliation, Dickerson argued Keselowski had been trying to prove a point to Hocevar by racing him extremely hard for 12 laps and “the way those guys were racing … somebody was going to make a mistake.”
“We don’t want to get in a crashing cars contest,” Dickerson said of Spire and RFK Racing, which Keselowski co-owns. “They’ve got two cars in the Chase, too. What, he wants to dump Carson so then Carson goes and gets (RFK’s Chris Buescher)? … I can tell you, if Carson’s going to get wrecked, there will be a commensurate response.”
Dickerson, who penned an essay about “Respect” on Spire’s website and made the term his team’s “North Star” in its mission statement, said he wants other drivers to respect Hocevar. And Hocevar will learn more mental toughness, Dickerson said, but that only comes with age and experience.
“There hasn’t been an Apple update yet on how we’re supposed to do that with Carson,” he said.
In the meantime, Dickerson said Spire has to “keep getting results, or this will just be a chapter in a book — and we want to write a whole story.” And trying to corral Hocevar isn’t part of the plan that will help the team’s cars go fast and win races, in his view.
“There is a fire that burns in all these young drivers, and the challenge is how do we keep that fire for as long as we can?” Dickerson said. “I’m not trying to extinguish the fire. If that’s what everybody is expecting from us, that’s not what’s going to happen.”