Bubba Wallace explains exchange with Carson Hocevar after Michigan race

Carson Hocevar has already earned a dubious nickname in just his handful of seasons driving in NASCAR’s top-level Cup Series: Hurricane.

The driver of the No. 77 Chevrolet for Spire Motorsports has earned a reputation for being overly aggressive, reckless and unapologetic. It’s led him to some great finishes, like a win at Talladega earlier this year and a fifth-place finish on Sunday at Michigan in the FireKeepers Casino 400, but it hasn’t helped the 23-year-old make many friends in the garage.

On Sunday, Bubba Wallace’s No. 23 Toyota was nearly collected in a multi-car crash caused by Hocevar, but escaped with minimal damage.

Out of a restart on the 83rd lap, Hocevar drove into the rear of John Hunter Nemechek’s No. 42 Toyota, spinning him into the field. It started a chain reaction as Nemechek made contact with Wallace, who then got knocked into Ty Gibbs, who then sent Wallace’s 23XI Racing teammate and Cup Series points leader Tyler Reddick into the wall. Reddick’s No. 45 Toyota then slid down the track and was clobbered by Austin Dillon’s No. 3 Chevrolet in the chaos. The wreck knocked Reddick and Dillon out of the race, giving Reddick his first DNF of the season.

“Man, I hope at some point (Hocever) figures it out,” Dillon said after checking out of the infield care center. “I’m mad because we had a fast race car.”

Wallace and Hocevar both went on to have strong finishes. Wallace placed third, his best finish of the season, while Hocevar — a Michigan native — placed fifth at his home track. They both jumped up in the point standings, with Hocevar rising to seventh and Wallace now in 11th, inside the cut line for the postseason.

After both drivers got out of their cars on pit road, Wallace pulled Hocevar aside and they had an animated and seemingly tense conversation while sitting on the pit wall. Wallace explained to Prime Sports what he told the young driver.

“I said ‘I’m jealous of how fast you are, kid.’ No doubt, he’s one of the fastest in the field, and that’s just natural ability. And so when you see that and you recognize that, I’ve got to give respect to it,” Wallace said. “But at the same time — Kevin Harvick told me, I don’t know, whenever I was hitting (expletive) four or five years ago, he said ‘Stop hitting (expletive) and your finishes will show.’ And that’s what I simply tried to tell him, man.”

Put more simply, the 32-year-old Wallace believes that Hocevar would be in more positions to win if he showed more control and restraint behind the wheel.

“He’s fast, he’s going for every move every second, and it’s not worth it. He’s creating a lot of enemies. This is the same old story, same old Hocevar,” Wallace said “But I just told him, ‘You’re fast, a lot of us are jealous of what you have and what you’re able to do, but we’re beating you because we can put a race together better than you.’”