Carson Hocevar once again found himself in the NASCAR spotlight after being involved in an incident that almost ended Denny Hamlin’s bid for the In-Season challenge at Sonoma. 

In the Toyota Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway, Hamlin started in ninth and kept himself in contention to finish in the top ten. The five-race In-Season challenge with a 32-driver bracket, which began at Sonoma and culminates in a $1 million prize for the winner in Indianapolis on July 26, had Hamlin pitted against Ty Dillon in Round 1.

However, on lap 64, Hamlin's efforts came undone, as Hocevar spun him around entering Turn 7 when the JGR driver was running in seventh place. During a post-race interview with NASCAR reporter Jeff Gluck, the No. 77 Spire driver was questioned about whether he knew what happened during the contact. 

"I just know I got hit," Hocevar said in a video shared by Jeff Gluck on X. "I was gonna be left, and then I looked in my mirror, and they're all lining up. I was like, s*** if I don't get right, I'm probably going to get spun. I haven't seen it, but I just remember getting hit. I definitely got hit in accordion. I thought it was the 60, maybe it was the 6. I saw a lot of them shoving." 

However, it was later confirmed that Hocevar was shoved by RFK Racing driver Brad Keselowski going into turn 7. This caused the No.77 Spire Motorsports driver to drive into the back of Denny Hamlin's car, which later picked up splitter damage and was repaired during a pit stop.

While the contact caused Denny Hamlin to eventually finish the race down in 26th, he managed to win round one of the in-season tournament against Ty Dillon, who finished in 35th place.

As for Carson Hocevar, this is not the first time he has been in the spotlight this weekend.

Carson Hocevar addresses drivers getting "riled up" with his social media presence

Ahead of the Sonoma race weekend, during an appearance on the "Racin with the Boys" podcast, Kyle Larson called Carson Hocevar "immature" for acting like "an 8-year-old" after looking at his Twitch streams.

However, in qualifying at Sonoma on Saturday, Hocevar out-qualified Larson and started besides SVG on the front row. Post-qualifying, he put out a post on his X account clapping back at the HMS driver, who qualified in third, writing:

"They fr let an 8 year old qualify on the front row."

When questioned about the same during a pre-race interview with TNT Sports, Hocevar replied, saying: 

"Yeah, I think some of these guys take things way too seriously at times. I like just having fun, I don’t know. Yeah, it’s so easy to get a lot of them riled up."

"I just get to race how I want to race, I get to live how I want to live. Yeah, I love everything about it. And I get to run my own social media, and nobody complains. So I’m excited for it, and I get to just have fun," the Spire Motorsports driver added.

If nothing else, Carson Hocevar has once again made it clear that he has no intention to change the way he does things. 

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Written by

Chionia Libania Colaco

Edited by

Yash Kotak