Beyond the criticism lobbied from Ross Chastain and Ryan Blaney, the other potential thing hanging over Carson Hocevar after the weekend was the optics of effectively pushing Christopher Bell in a Toyota to the win past Kyle Larson in a fellow Chevrolet.
And not only was it a Chevrolet, this was a Hendrick Motorsports car, which supplies engines and technical support to Spire Motorsports.
At the time, Hocevar said he was just trying to push Bell ahead so he could drop in front of Larson with almost a full lap remaining to make a potentially race winning move. What he couldn’t predict was a race ending caution while they were on the backstretch.
Hocevar agreed the ‘optics were bad’ but did not account for how much scheduled distance in overtime was remaining. He was a little nervous going into meetings on Monday but says the went well.
“I was curious to see how those conversations would go on Monday with Chevrolet and Hendrick and all of those were glowingly positive,” Hocevar said on Saturday morning during a media availability at Circuit of the Americas. “For that, I’m in an appreciative spot that they let me go race. They see the plans and moves and I can appreciate that as a competitor that they let me have that freedom.”
Later in that session, he said he got no real pushback from the manufacturer, their partners nor his direct bosses at Spire.
“They saw what I had and the plan,” Hocevar said. “I’m not going to apologize for having a shot to win the race and seeing a trophy. I thought it worked out really well. The apology I gave to Hendrick and Chevy was that I didn’t see the replay — and I was apologizing for the circumstances that the yellow came out. It just happened to work out that way, and I didn’t time out right.
“But for what we could control and we internally as a group at Spire, it’s all been positive for me, and it’s been a lot of fun. (Spire co-owner) Jeff Dickerson, I’ve never seen him so happy, and that I think is the most fulfilling because I look at him like a father figure and it’s like I just hit my Tee-ball for the first time and my dad is proud of me again.”
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.
