Many drivers expressed their feelings after Carson Hocevar drove aggressively at EchoPark Speedway. The Spire Motorsports driver received major backlash after his collisions during the Autotrader 400 in Georgia, especially with Christopher Bell on the first restart. While some like it, many others have spoken out against his driving style in negative ways. But for anyone in the garage expecting an apology, the so-called ‘aggressive’ driver responded with a defiant message.

Hocevar’s defiant five-word message

Hocevar spoke in an interview about how his driving style was perceived, which was labeled as aggressive. Dirty Mo Media posted the interview where, with just five words, Hocevar was able to send a message to those questioning him.

“We are not really even.”

For context, Hocevar went into detail about how he needed to explain himself. He said that there are no times when he is going out to race and thinks, “What famous racecar driver am I gonna play pretend today about?”

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“I’m just out there racing. I’m not anybody,” Hocevar said.

He then described his own racing style as aggressive, but not in a way with the intention to harm the other drivers out there, which is how the backlash is coming across.

“I’m not thinking about how can I play mental mind games and get away with this?” Hocevar said. “Anytime I do it, unintentionally, right? I’m just like, ‘Man I’m sorry,’ like there was no intention.”

To further explain this, Hocevar compared it to skeet shooting, something he used on SiriusXM once. When you go to shoot, you might shoot ten or five feet off, or not even close, but the intention is to aim and hit the thing. For Hocevar, in racing, you might see an inch or a gap and think, ‘Oh I can make it,’ but you might end up crashing.

Maybe with this explanation and connection, the other drivers can see how Hocevar works. At the end of the day, he’s just a driver who has a goal, which is to win.

“If anybody wants to, per se, settle the score. That’s the intention and I feel like that’s two points on the score part vs my maybe one.”

Hocevar responds to Hendrick rumors

Racing legend Kenny Wallace mentioned on his podcast a rumor about Hocevar and his move to Hendrick Motorsports. Wallace told Hocevar that some said he’s just putting in the time and training with Spire only to later join up and be the lead driver for Hendrick. Hocevar responded quickly.

“I mean, I signed a very long-term paper at Spire. I am there for the next decade,” said Hocevar.

The driver reiterated on his Twitter account after the extension was announced earlier this month. He said he’s a big Spire fan and everything the organization has going for it currently. In his mind, Spire Motorsports is growing.

“With Dan Towriss and Jeff Dickerson, I have two of, I think, the best owners. Dan Towriss is awesome and really has a lot of things going great for other realms of racing. But he has so much trust in Jeff Dickerson to run the show and run the NASCAR program and run Spire exactly how he wants to do it and get the best people and the best cars and just keep rolling.

“Everyone’s bought into his vision. There’s nothing else,” said Hocevar.

With a P4 finish at Atlanta and standing 4th in the rankings as well, the start of the 2026 season has gone well for Hocevar, though he hasn’t secured a Cup win yet. He has locked up 15 Top 10 finishes in his Cup Series career. And he has faith in both Dickerson and Towriss to help him.

“If you’re running 22nd or 25th, he doesn’t come in and ask why we ran 25th, he goes, he’ll just go, ‘What do you need? What do you need?’ It’s not like, ‘Damn, what happened? I got you all this stuff.’ It’s like…What’s next?” said Hocevar.