Carson Hocevar started the year not expecting any of this to happen.
At 20 years old, Hocevar was focused on his third year as a Craftsman Truck Series driver for Al Niece and finally breaking through for a victory. By April, Hocevar had accomplished that with a triumph at Texas Motor Speedway.
By June, he was a Cup Series driver, and life hasn’t been the same since. Hocevar made his first start in St. Louis with Spire Motorsports when Corey LaJoie was loaned to Hendrick Motorsports for the suspended Chase Elliott. Impressive in his performance with a top-20 run before a mechanical failure ended his day, Hocevar suddenly became a potential option for teams looking at 2024.
Then, in early September, Legacy Motor Club put Hocevar in the No. 42 for what was supposed to be two races but has turned into an interim gig for the remainder of the year. He’s also still chasing a Truck Series championship.
And that 2024 opportunity? It was officially announced on October 10 that he’s headed to Spire Motorsports full-time.
“It really has been surreal,” Hocevar tells RACER of how quickly things developed for him this season. “I’ve enjoyed it so much there hasn’t been any pressure or nerves; I’ve just enjoyed doing it so much I haven’t been nervous at all. I’ve wanted the opportunity to get in a Cup car for the longest time, so when I was finally able to, well, if I was asking for it, I felt like I belonged there.
“I wasn’t nervous. I wasn’t scared to make mistakes. I wasn’t scared to wreck the car. I was more scared to be slow. I’d rather be fast one lap and crash lap two than run 400 miles and be slow the whole time because I was very conservative. I’d rather find the limits.”
With no championship on the line (although the team is focused on its owner points position, of course), Hocevar gets to be aggressive and learn. He quickly took to the feel of the Next Gen car and has four top-20 finishes in his six starts with Legacy M.C.
Being aggressive is not a problem for Hocevar. His approach to racing had always been, ‘why would I not try to go fast?’ Such thinking is what drew a lot of criticism Hocevar’s way for the decisions he was making on the racetrack even early this season, whether it was contact with other drivers or seemingly bringing out intentional cautions.
But just as things started to change for Hocevar with the opportunities he was getting, so did his style. It was early summer when it seemed a light switch flipped in Hocevar’s maturity as he began to take responsibility and understand the feedback he was receiving. And perhaps helping drive the point home was when NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr. flat-out asked Hocevar when he was going to stop tearing up equipment.
“As a race car driver, you’re never the problem,” Hocevar says. “There’s always an excuse there to find, and that was probably how it was. But when Dale says that, you’re not going to say your idol is wrong, right? You’re not going to not listen to your idol. And you don’t want him to say that but there’s a reason he’s saying that. So that was a big thing.
“But the biggest thing is, I wanted to win so bad, and I wanted to run well and cared a lot about how we ran and finished. I cared too much. The second anything went bad, it didn’t make sense to me the whole, ‘Oh, we’ll get them next week.’ If we’re still driving, we still have this week. So, I’ve always thought that and probably made some moves that you can’t do, but they were possible to try to get you back in the race or reset the day even if there’s not much of the day left. So, there was a lot of things like that where I didn’t want to run second or I was running fifth or sixth and wanted to win.
“Once I started realizing that it was about trying to get the best out of the day and not win the day, it really started to click a little bit more. Then, all of a sudden, we started winning and running better. I’ve been told for years now that I just needed to slow down 10%, and we’d be really good. I never understood that; why would I ever slow down? But now everything feels really slow, honestly and we got a lot faster.”
Hocevar has three wins this season in the Truck Series. He is 23 points above the cutline going into the elimination race at Homestead-Miami Speedway to set the Championship 4.
Off the racetrack, Hocevar has also been evolving. Before his performance could do the talking, he got attention for the silly hats he wore pre-race. Hocevar likes to have fun, and the only place he truly feels confident is at the racetrack. So, he let his personality come out by being different.
Sure, it got expensive, which is a big reason why Hocevar stopped wearing the hats weeks ago, but the timing was perfect. They had served their purpose of getting attention, and now that Hocevar has it, he can show off by being successful behind the wheel.
“I love racing; I can talk about it all day, think about it all day, dream about it all night,” he says. “When I’m having fun at the track, it feels super-natural for me. But I definitely feel more confident (now). I was so focused on winning that I didn’t just let myself have fun. I was always like, well, if I just work harder. You can’t work for a win. You can prepare for a win, but you can’t outwork anybody in racing. It’s not like boxing, where you can just be stronger than the other guy.
“The only thing you can really work on is your decision-making in racing. A lot of time, the best I do is the least I prepare because I can focus on one or two things that I really need to work on, and I let everything else be natural and off instinct.”
Hocevar is fortunate to be able to pull from multiple areas of resources – Niece Motorsports, Spire and Legacy Motor Club. Across the three national series, Hocevar has made 33 starts, and even when he’s not in the Cup Series car for Legacy Motor Club, Hocevar has stayed integrated with the team, becoming a sponge of the information around him from experienced drivers and team personnel.
In addition to gaining experience behind in the Next Gen car ahead of next season, Hocevar has focused on earning the respect of his fellow drivers and building relationships on track. Hocevar wants the field to know they can trust being around him.
The Carson Hocevar from the beginning of the season might not have cared about that. But how quickly things changed, and how much is changing within Hocevar.
“I don’t know if I would be able to put it in words, honestly. It’s been pretty surreal to be able to do this,” Hocevar said of how valuable the experience has been with Legacy Motor Club and seeing what it takes at the Cup Series level. “But more than anything, obviously just building my confidence in a Cup car. You fire off the year at Daytona and Atlanta, and you can run 36th both races and be in the hole by race three, and now your confidence is completely shot. Whereas I’m now able to be like, I can drive a Cup car, and we can run up front … we can run a Cup car really good even with the (transition) Legacy (is going through).
“It’s been super big for me to be able to do that and have the confidence going into next year. It’s allowed me, no matter how we start the year with my Spire guys, to know I can do this.”