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Home / NASCAR / Carson Hocevar Hit With Hefty Fine From His Own Team, Spire Motorsports, For Insensitive Comments

Carson Hocevar Hit With Hefty Fine From His Own Team, Spire Motorsports, For Insensitive Comments

Jared Turner Written by Sports EditorJared Turner
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Carson Hocevar

Any way you slice the proverbial pie, Carson Hocevar has endured a rough few days.

First, there was another dustup — the second in three weeks — between him and Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

Then, Tuesday evening, Spire Motorsports made an announcement about Hocevar. And the news was anything but good for the 22-year-old Portage, Michigan native.

Spire Motorsports Slaps Driver With $50K Fine, Sensitivity Training Mandate

Before arriving to compete in Sunday’s inaugural NASCAR Cup Series race in Mexico City, Carson Hocevar made it abundantly clear that he wasn’t thrilled about making the trip South of the Border.

“If the travel was better, if getting here was easier, if you felt safer getting to and from everywhere, if it wasn’t such a ****hole, if the track limits were a little better enforced, if it was gonna be a little bit better of a race, and it wasn’t so easy to, or feel so locked down like you can’t leave anywhere, it’d be a great experience,” Hocevar said on his Twitch stream. “If you take all those out, it’s unbelievable. It’s great.”

Hocevar’s team was less than amused upon learning of his comments, releasing a scathing rebuke that reverberated throughout the NASCAR world on Tuesday.

Instead of us summarizing the lengthy statement from Spire Motorsports, you can just read it for yourself.

A $50,000 fine and mandatory cultural-sensitivity and bias-awareness training? That’s a significant punishment. Spire Motorsports — no doubt feeling some heat from NASCAR to swiftly address the situation with Hocevar — clearly means business.

Carson Hocevar Strikes Remorseful Tone Before And After Rebuke From Team

Carson Hocevar actually attempted to walk back his Mexico City comments a couple of days before his team issued its official reaction. In that same post, from Sunday, he also alluded to his feud with Ricky Stenhouse Jr., which resurfaced during and after the race in Mexico City.

Hocevar wrecked Stenhouse two weeks earlier at Nashville, but the two had a conversation in the days following the incident that seemed to ease tensions. But Stenhouse was absolutely livid, once again, after Hocevar ran into him on the Mexico City road course. How ticked was Stenhouse? The visibly angry driver confronted Hocevar after the race by sticking his head inside Hocevar’s window.

When asked what he said to Hocevar during the exchange, Stenhouse offered a rather terse but candid reply.

“I told him I was going to beat his a** once we got back in the States,” Stenhouse told reporters on-site in Mexico City.

Will Stenhouse make good on his word this weekend at Pocono Raceway, site of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race? That remains to be seen, of course. Either way, though, Hocevar left little doubt Tuesday about his regrets over his Mexico City comments.

Here’s the young driver’s response to several fans on X, who quickly jumped to his defense after Spire Motorsports issued its rather harsh statement.

 

Jared Turner Written by Sports EditorJared Turner
Jared Turner is a motorsports writer who has covered NASCAR for 20 years. He has interviewed over 20 NASCAR Hall of Famers and around 100 drivers, crew chiefs, and team owners, both past and present. He has also covered the sport for FOX Sports (where he was a two-time recipient of the FOX “X” Award for “Xtraordinary” job performance), NASCAR.com, Sporting News, NASCAR Pole Position Magazine, the SPEED network, and plenty of other online and print-only publications throughout his career. Notably, Jared has penned dozens of articles for NASCAR souvenir programs, including several featured prominently in Daytona 500 keepsakes. A Virginia Press Association award winner and former member of the National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA), Jared has racked up accolades both for his writing and his academic work. He studied both Communication and Psychology at Virginia Tech, where he was permanently enshrined in Phi Beta Kappa — the nation’s oldest and most prestigious academic honor society. Jared excels at feature writing and opinion writing, much of which stems from his dedication to all levels of racing.
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