{"id":302950,"date":"2025-11-24T03:16:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T03:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/302950\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T03:16:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T03:16:11","slug":"hocevar-believes-hamlins-heartbreak-may-help-nascar-motorsport-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/302950\/","title":{"rendered":"Hocevar believes Hamlin\u2019s \u2018heartbreak\u2019 may help NASCAR – Motorsport – Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"

In his young NASCAR career, Caron Hocevar has yet to find himself in a similar position as Denny Hamlin was to close out the Cup Series season, but the 22-year-old offered his sympathy to the veteran driver and looked on the bright side of the situation.<\/p>\n

Hocevar, driver of the No. 77 Chevrolet Camaro for Spire Motorsports, was long out of the title picture when NASCAR<\/a> came to Phoenix for its final race of the season, but 45-year-old Hamlin<\/a> was right there for his first championship in an otherwise accomplished career.<\/p>\n

It all was going well for Hamlin and the No. 11 Toyota Camry of Joe Gibbs Racing until a late caution, and Hamlin was left out of position after pitting, turning a race he led for much of the way into a nightmare<\/a> as Kyle Larson and Hendrick Motorsports came away with the hardware for the No. 5 Chevy Camaro.<\/a><\/p>\n

Speaking exclusively to Express US Sports after appearing as a celebrity caddie at The Annika last week<\/a>, Hocevar said he felt for Hamlin after the way it all went down in Phoenix, but wasn’t mad to see Larson win given Spire’s alliance with Hendrick.<\/p>\n

“Yeah. I mean, how can you not?” said Hocevar. “You know how close he’s been for how many times. But for me, myself and our team, obviously, it’s good for Hendrick to win, Chevy to win and everything.”<\/p>\n

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Hocevar, who finished the season in 23rd with two top-five finishes, also believes the result can be a good thing for the sport in the long run, as Hamlin’s star power may keep new fans invested.<\/p>\n

“I think for the sport’s sake, it’s important to have close finishes. And at times, heartbreaks can drive ratings or make people hungrier and excited to watch,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Hopefully the people that weren’t Denny fans that felt for him tune in again next year. And I think that’s more support for the sport’s sake.”<\/p>\n

While Hocevar felt for how the playoff system worked out for Hamlin, the youngster said he doesn’t quite have the experience to have a true opinion on how it operates and if there’s a better alternative.<\/p>\n

“If I had a zero behind the amount of years I had experience, I’d have an opinion on it,” Hocevar said. “I’m just happy to be in it, whatever the format is or not. And honestly, for us, I think maybe the playoffs do help us. But, you know, I say that and maybe we can be super consistent and we could be really good. So yeah, I don’t care, it’s not worth me saying it, you know what I mean?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In his young NASCAR career, Caron Hocevar has yet to find himself in a similar position as Denny…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302951,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,26749,3932,4384,4386,2332,634,8354,82],"class_list":["post-302950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-carson-hocevar","tag-denny-hamlin","tag-hendrick-motorsports","tag-kyle-larson","tag-motorsport-section","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-cup-series","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302950","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=302950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}