The spotlight of last Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race was meant to be on the playoff grid. It marked the penultimate race of the 2025 season, with 6 drivers locked in a fierce battle. William Byron emerged victorious, as he led 304 out of 500 laps to win in Martinsville. But while the Hendrick Motorsports driver was punching his ticket to the Final Four, a certain incident stole attention from his domination. Notably, it also posed a risk, as Denny Hamlin observed.

The Joe Gibbs Racing veteran had already locked himself into the Championship 4. Hamlin wanted to avoid entering any of the headlines for Martinsville, although he crashed out due to an engine failure. Yet the long mishap that Carson Hocevar faced made the Virginia-native’s jaw drop more.

Reckless moves baffle Denny Hamlin 

Carson Hocevar stayed true to his well-renowned rabble-rouser attitude. Yet, contrary to earlier incidents, the Martinsville chaos may end up doing the No. 77 Spire Motorsports driver himself more harm. Hocevar landed in not one, but three cautions. First, Hocevar made contact with his future teammate, Daniel Suarez, on lap 217, and issued an expletive at the Mexican speedster. Then the duo wrangled again, nearly 200 laps later. Finally, Hocevar made contact with his current teammate, Michael McDowell, which brought out the final caution of the Xfinity 500 race. “I don’t know what they were doing back there, but it’s pretty wild,” Denny Hamlin said in an ‘Actions Detrimental’ episode.

This in-house sparring went on inside Spire, which is affiliated with HMS. In fact, the final caution left William Byron, an HMS star, vulnerable to an attack from Ryan Blaney. So Denny Hamlin observed the risk that Carson Hocevar exposed himself to. “You’re willing to risk being in the headline for being responsible for the final caution when it’s your manufacturer leading and your associate cars that you have a tight alliance with, and you’re back there playing grab ass for 20-something? …Spire, you have an affiliation with Hendrick, and you surely know that the 24 is leading the race, and you’re back there wrecking each other.”

In fact, Hendrick’s top brass has already addressed the chaotic situation. Jeff Gordon, HMS vice-chairman, initially poked fun at the sheer number of mishaps. “I lost count,” he said. But then he struck a serious note: “I know for those of us who have been in these meetings, we’re all thinking, ‘Wow, that Monday morning meeting is going to be a tough one over there at Spire’ because there was a lot of contact, not just with their current drivers, but one of their future ones, too.”

Denny Hamlin took note of Carson Hocevar‘s misfortune mid-race. “Every time they said…go high car low on turn two or stay low on turn four, there’s a car high, it was always the 77 up there,” he said. “But Martinsville is a test of patience, and if you’re not a patient person, you’re going to find yourself in bumper tag with everyone that you’re around constantly. So I don’t know what happened, but it seemed like people lost their patience with the 77 or…wrong place, wrong time.”

Well, Carson Hocevar managed to dominate the headlines again, albeit on a risky note. Despite the trouble he caused for Mr. H’s team, a Hendrick Motorsports star took a light-hearted jab at the incidents.

Joking after losing a potential win

William Byron was the indubitable high-flyer in Martinsville. Yet he had some solid playoff rivals hounding his read all through the race. Ryan Blaney was topmost, as the Team Penske driver led for 177 laps. Another competitor was Byron’s teammate, Kyle Larson. The No. 5 Chevrolet was on a mission – to topple Christopher Bell in points for a Championship 4 berth. He excelled at that job, running inside the top five for a large portion of the race. What’s more, he could have won as well – but he needed long green flag runs, which were absent due to Carson Hocevar’s chaos.

Kyle Larson finished the race 7 points above the cutline and advanced to Phoenix. Yet he reflected on why he missed a potential victory. “You know, a couple of times I just wanted it to stay green. Then, you know, the 77 was in like, every caution tonight,” Larson joked. “I felt good about my car on restarts, but you just never know how the aggression is going to pick up, and everybody’s ‘give a s—’ factor goes out the window there. So, um, but we had good enough track position all day. We were kinda out of the, you know, mess, I guess. Yeah, that was good.”

Carson Hocevar may be the laughing stock of the garage right now. However, as Denny Hamlin observed, he needs to get along with his Spire Motorsports teammates to retain HMS’ trust.