{"id":113054,"date":"2025-09-02T00:50:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T00:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/113054\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T00:50:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T00:50:10","slug":"christopher-bell-weighs-in-on-carson-hocevar-clash-in-playoff-opener-motorsport-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/113054\/","title":{"rendered":"Christopher Bell weighs in on Carson Hocevar clash in Playoff opener – Motorsport – Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"

To the surprise of absolutely nobody, the ever-divisive Carson Hocevar ended the NASCAR Cup Series<\/a>‘ Cook Out Southern 500 on Sunday on the bad side of his rivals – this time as a result of a bizarre pit road incident as well as an on-track clash<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Spire Motorsports\u2019 Hocevar, whose undeniable talent is regularly overshadowed by his controversial on-track antics<\/a>, seemingly found grip hard to come by at Darlington, leaving him spinning out on lap 152 to bring out the caution flag. The 22-year-old made his way to pit road for a fresh set of Goodyears; however, as he pulled into his stall, he collided with Christopher Bell.<\/p>\n

Pulling out of the stall adjacent, Joe Gibbs Racing\u2019s Bell spun Hocevar yet again, leaving the No. 77 Chevrolet facing in the wrong direction as the No. 20 Toyota continued onward toward the track, although his car was left worse for wear.<\/p>\n

In what was the first Playoff race of the season, championship hopeful Bell ended up coming home down in 29th, while Hocevar crossed the line in ninth in what he had described mid-race as the \u201cworst-driving race car I have ever driven,\u201d via On3.<\/p>\n

Following the race, a frustrated Bell explained that while he didn\u2019t place the blame directly on Hocevar, the incident still \u201cruined\u201d his race. \u201cThe No. 77 just didn\u2019t yield. He didn\u2019t give way,\u201d Bell told reporters, via Frontstretch<\/a>. \u201cI would say that it\u2019s our responsibility not to run into him if he\u2019s racing for position.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the fact that he was the one who brought the yellow out. The only reason that we had contact was because he was so far behind the field, catching up. That\u2019s very frustrating.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, I don\u2019t really give blame to Carson. I think it\u2019s more on his team to not let him know the circumstances that he\u2019s pitted on an island with all the Playoff cars. He just spun, brought out the yellow. He\u2019s not going to gain a spot on pit road and he didn\u2019t give way and ruined my night. It\u2019s a bummer.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for Hocevar, he later said the incident came about as his team had been focused on watching the No. 12 of Ryan Blaney, noting it was simply an example of \u201cbad timing\u201d and that it \u201csucks for everybody involved. I think it\u2019s just hard to watch everything. Sometimes you’ve got to pick a car to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n

DON’T MISS…<\/p>\n

But Hocevar\u2019s clash with Bell wasn\u2019t his only controversial moment of the race, as earlier he and Hendrick Motorsports\u2019 Chase Elliott were involved in some pushing and shoving on track, nearly sending the No. 77 into a spin, prompting the youngster to lash out at the veteran over his radio. \u201cF— him. I don’t care who he drives for,\u201d Hocevar said. Elliott, who is chasing his second career Cup Series title, finished the race in 17th.<\/p>\n

This comes after Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr.<\/a> recently sent Hocevar some stern warnings via his podcast that repeatedly getting himself on the wrong side of drivers, and in so doing, damaging his own reputation, could end up backfiring down the line<\/a>. The 50-year-old also specifically mentioned how clashing with anyone on Rick Hendrick\u2019s team could prove particularly problematic<\/a>, given that they supply Spire\u2019s engines.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe said this months and months ago \u2014 everything\u2019s fine until he runs into one of Rick\u2019s cars or something like that and he has to go into the office and talk to Rick Hendrick,” he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt might not be Rick, but it\u2019ll be a person like Rick that when he has to go in and have that conversation, that will have an effect. That might not fix it all, but that will have an effect on the decision-making behind the wheel. I\u2019m entertained by Hocevar until it becomes my problem. I think it\u2019s all fine until he does something that irks Hendrick. Or somebody that\u2019s directly above his chain of command.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To the surprise of absolutely nobody, the ever-divisive Carson Hocevar ended the NASCAR Cup Series‘ Cook Out Southern…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,26749,10328,2332,634,8662,18143,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-113054","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-carson-hocevar","11":"tag-christopher-bell","12":"tag-motorsport-section","13":"tag-nascar","14":"tag-nascar-playoffs","15":"tag-spire-motorsports","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}