Another NASCAR driver has expressed interest in driving in the Indianapolis 500. In his guest appearance on Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s The Dale Jr. Download podcast this week, Spire Motorsports driver Carson Hocevar called the Indy 500 the “ultimate” race he’d like to do.
“That’s by far the coolest race for me,” Hocevar said. “Indy’s my favorite track, even on the Cup car.”
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The 23-year-old just captured his first Cup victory in the No. 77 Spire Chevrolet in the Jack Link’s 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. Hocevar made waves around the racing world for not only the win, but his celebration, where he did his victory lap hanging out of the window of the car.
Nicknamed “Hurricane Hocevar,” the Portage, Michigan, native sits at eight in the Cup standings through 10 races. Hocevar finished 12th in the Brickyard 400 in 2024 and 10th in 2025.
“I’ve never gone down a straightaway and realized I was smiling,” Hocevar said of his first time driving at IMS. “Like, I was cheesing my (expletive) off, smiling and enjoying it. … For every lap I was running it, I kept narrating as if I was coming around to win the Indy 500.”
The clear path for Hocevar to race in the Indy 500 would be if he stays with Spire Motorsports and enters the race with Andretti Global. Both teams are owned by TWG Motorsports, and the future of Andretti Global’s extra entries is unknown after Marco Andretti retired from the race last year. Andretti Global initially set out to enter an extra car in this year’s race, driven by Colton Herta, but after F2 added a race on race day (May 24), Andretti Global decided not to enter a fourth car for the first time since 2002.
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TWG Motorsports CEO Dan Towriss laughed off the idea of Hocevar doing the Indy 500 any time soon when speaking to media in February, saying, “At 240 miles an hour? I don’t know about that.”
It seems as if Hocevar must gain more NASCAR experience before being considered to do The Double, which Kyle Larson unsuccessfully attempted in 2024 and 2025. But one of the racing world’s biggest personalities has made it clear how much he wants to participate in the greatest spectacle in racing.
Zion Brown is IndyStar’s motorsports reporter. Follow him at @z10nbr0wn. Get IndyStar’s motor sports coverage sent directly to your inbox with our Motor Sports newsletter. Subscribe to the YouTube channel IndyStar TV: IndyCar for a behind-the-scenes look at IndyCar and expert analysis.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: NASCAR’s Carson Hocevar wants to race in Indy 500
