Hocevar was unapologetic after the incident and even made light of it, offering an additional 6 percent off merchandise in his online store \u2014 the No. 6 being Keselowski\u2019s car number.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey don\u2019t seem to care,\u201d USA Sports analyst Jeff Burton said on Sunday\u2019s postrace show. \u201cThey seem to be OK with it. I\u2019m not going to question Jeff Dickerson and the ownership. You would have to think at some point, they would say, \u2018Look, enough\u2019s enough,\u2019 but to this point, publicly anyway, they don\u2019t seem to care a whole lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dickerson said those talks with his driver do happen, but, \u201cWe don\u2019t put out a press release every time we have a talk with Carson or we discipline Carson on something.<\/p>\n
\u201cEssentially they\u2019re saying, \u2018Will you just change him? Don\u2019t you know that there\u2019s a script that these guys follow? Don\u2019t you know they come in like this, but they eventually get neutered?\u2019\u201d Dickerson said. \u201cJust so we\u2019re all clear, that\u2019s not what we\u2019re going to do. We\u2019re not trying to change Carson.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not going to be another carcass of a personality that we\u2019re going to put out by the (curb), and we\u2019re going to get him in a polo shirt and we\u2019re going to get him in khakis. That\u2019s not what\u2019s about to happen. So if that\u2019s what everybody\u2019s expecting from us, I\u2019m sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Jeff](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/GettyImages-1698607179.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
\n Jeff Dickerson, Spire Motorsports co-owner, said he won\u2019t try to corral his young driver. (Jeffrey Vest \/ Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
That said, Dickerson said he doesn\u2019t want Hocevar running into other drivers because it\u2019s unnecessary and said it was important for Hocevar to stay in the headlines for positive reasons instead of controversial ones (\u201cCan we have some clean weeks, please?\u201d he said. \u201cCan the PR staff like have one Monday off?\u201d).<\/p>\n
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 \u201cActions Detrimental\u201d podcast that there were \u201cno adults in the room\u201d at Spire and the organization was \u201cunserious.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re serious enough to sue, apparently,\u201d Dickerson responded, referring to a lawsuit brought by Joe Gibbs Racing over a former employee who left for Spire.<\/p>\n
Dickerson added, perhaps tongue-in-cheek, that he was taking Hamlin\u2019s comments \u201cas a warning\u201d because \u201cDenny knows what it looks like when you don\u2019t confront things like this.\u201d 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, \u201cAre they afraid to talk to him? That\u2019s what I feel like \u2014 they\u2019re scared of him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s essentially what he\u2019s saying to me: Are you guys going to talk to him or not?\u201d Dickerson said. \u201cDenny\u2019s got a PhD in this, and I\u2019m not going to have what happened at JGR happen to Spire. And it hasn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for Keselowski\u2019s comments threatening to wreck Hocevar\u2019s 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 \u201cthe way those guys were racing \u2026 somebody was going to make a mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t want to get in a crashing cars contest,\u201d Dickerson said of Spire and RFK Racing, which Keselowski co-owns. \u201cThey\u2019ve got two cars in the Chase, too. What, he wants to dump Carson so then Carson goes and gets (RFK\u2019s Chris Buescher)? \u2026 I can tell you, if Carson\u2019s going to get wrecked, there will be a commensurate response.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dickerson, who penned an essay about \u201cRespect\u201d on Spire\u2019s website and made the term his team\u2019s \u201cNorth Star\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere hasn\u2019t been an Apple update yet on how we\u2019re supposed to do that with Carson,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, Dickerson said Spire has to \u201ckeep getting results, or this will just be a chapter in a book \u2014 and we want to write a whole story.\u201d And trying to corral Hocevar isn\u2019t part of the plan that will help the team\u2019s cars go fast and win races, in his view.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere 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?\u201d Dickerson said. \u201cI\u2019m not trying to extinguish the fire. If that\u2019s what everybody is expecting from us, that\u2019s not what\u2019s going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spire Motorsports co-owner Jeff Dickerson responded to criticism he and his team are \u201cunserious\u201d and \u201cdon\u2019t seem to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":890933,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,12716,634,82],"class_list":["post-890932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-motorsports","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890932","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=890932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/890933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=890932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=890932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=890932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}