NASCAR driver Carson Hocevar has become one of the biggest names in motorsports in the past year, attending the Met Gala while also creating headlines on the track. While fans and drivers seem split on his personality and behavior, he has one more defender in Trackhouse Racing owner Justin Marks.
Just days after Hocevar flipped the bird to Corey Heim during the Brickyard 400, Marks appeared on SPEED with Harvick and Buxton to offer a defense of what Hocevar is bringing to NASCAR.
“We need big stars. What Carson’s doing right now, being this big polarizing personality, is just so good for the sport, in my opinion.”
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Some fans on both Reddit and Facebook pointed out that Marks’s defense of Hocevar feels a bit ironic given the team owner’s past statements pertaining to Ross Chastain. Back in 2023, when Chastain was coming under fire for driving aggressively, Marks said, “There’s stuff that has to be cleaned up” regarding Chastain after he was ripped by Rick Hendrick publicly. At the time, Marks seemed to acknowledge Chastain’s tendency to drive aggressivelly and claimed the team wanted to work with him to address.
That doesn’t necessarily mean Chastain changed the way he drives. He’s still widely viewed as one of the more aggressive drivers on the track, especially when it comes to blocking. With that said, it still comes off as a bit odd that Trackhouse’s owner is a bit more publicly supportive of Hocevar today than he was of his own driver in 2023.
It could also be argued that there are more pressing matters for Marks and Trackhouse to deal with. The team’s three full-time drivers in the Cup Series (Chastain, Shane van Gisbergen and Connor Zilisch) are all on expiring contracts in 2027.
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Zilisch already seems to be penciled in to replace Alex Bowman at Hendrick Motorsports, meaning Trackhouse will lose a potential generational talent just two years after adding him. Meanwhile, given the team’s underperformance this season, Zilisch and van Gisbergen could also head elsewhere.
It’s also not as if Trackhouse has any shot of luring Hocevar away from Spire Motorsports anytime soon. While the public defense of the young driver might make some good points regarding the future of NASCAR, it’s also fair to say that Marks should have some bigger things on which he should focus.
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