Carson Hocevar Looking Forward To Talladega Return: ‘It’ll Be Fun’

Carson Hocevar loves to race, so it’s not like he would ever enter Talladega in a foul mood. But going back to a track where he has won a Cup race will feel extra special for the NASCAR driver. His victory at Talladega helped him attract a diverse fan base of folks who follow the sport closely as well as those who follow it more casually. Few can forget the Hocevar celebration, as he stood in his car with his body out the driver-side window, controlling the car with his knees as he did a slide and burnout while waving to the fans. “I’m looking forward to it,” Hocevar told me prior to The Chase when looking ahead to Talladega. “It’ll be fun. Minus Daytona when I spun passing for the lead, we’ve been leading [at] every superspeedway. … Probably like three years ago, I think we would have won all of them because it seemed like they never finished under green. “I’ve enjoyed it, and I’m looking forward to going back there.” Hocevar has some ideas for a celebration if he can repeat at Talladega. “I think people were asking the second I was done with it at Talladega if I’d do it again,” Hocevar told me and other reporters last week. “There’s some ideas I have to try and improve on it. “And I asked [NASCAR CEO Steve] O’Donnell … I was like, ‘Hey, I have an idea.’ We haven’t met on the idea yet, but I was like, ‘Hey, it might get both of us in trouble. I don’t know if it’s possible to do, but I kind of need your blessing.’ And he said the fact I was asking now already, it sounds like he is all in on it. He’s like, ‘Oh, I love it already’. Hopefully, I get to eventually be in that spot to win a race again and ask for forgiveness a little later.” Winning back-to-back races at a superspeedway doesn’t come easy. It requires a bit of luck as well as the ability to position oneself at the front of the draft, managing the pushes and potentially making the blocks when needed. Hocevar isn’t worrying about points; he is all but eliminated from championship contention. He sits 11th in the standings at 158 points behind leader Kyle Larson. Any driver 153 points behind the points’ leader after Talladega will be out of the hunt for The Chase. But the somewhat polarizing 23-year-old driver will just go race as he normally does. He doesn’t think he needs a 26-car wreck at Talladega like there was in April when only 21 cars finished on the lead lap. “I feel like we could win it with 40 cars,” Hocevar said. “We ran sixth [at] both Talladegas the year before, and obviously we’ve been up front leading the Daytonas and then, obviously, Atlantas too. “I feel like we’re just really good at those superspeedways. Ultimately, the guys that wrecked at the end of my Talladega were not Chevys. There’s a lot of times I’m up front and I’m the only Chevy, so that makes things a little difficult at times.” The car this weekend is a little bit different than in April. The spoilers were seven-inches tall for Talladega in April. NASCAR cut them to four inches for Daytona in August and has now cut them again to 3.5 inches for the race this weekend. The hope is that drivers have more ability to maneuver in the pack as the cars won’t handle well enough to be bunched as tightly together. “I thought Daytona was pretty good, but it was mainly because a lot of us had to start lifting and struggling in the corners,” Hocevar said. “I spun by myself. So handling was still a factor. At Talladega, we kind of have to lift a little bit and create gaps. “These cars suck up a lot, so hopefully that helps.” If he can win, Hocevar could have another career-altering experience. “Pretty much my life has changed since that moment,” he said. “I got to really enjoy it. And it means a lot to me that there’s a moment in NASCAR that non-NASCAR people saw it on their phone and they still reference it or acknowledge seeing it and NASCAR people still talk about it and still show it in commercials. “I’m sure they’ll throw it in for a long time. That means a lot.”