The season finale of the 2023 NASCAR Truck Series served up a huge controversy. Two championship drivers, Carson Hocevar and Corey Heim came together on track multiple times. They effectively ended each other’s title hopes but the blame for the whole fiasco seems to fall on Hocevar. The driver of the #42 truck was apologetic throughout the race and after, but not many people were buying it including Denny Hamlin.

Hocevar was in the lead of the championship at one point before he was passed clean by Corey Heim. The driver of the #42 was racing to get the spot back but seemed to be a bit overzealous with his move. He made contact with the #11 truck and spun him around, effectively ending his chance at the championship. But it was Heim who got the last laugh as he completely wrecked the #42 later on in the race.

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After Carson Hocevar had made contact, he was immediately frustrated and apologetic. The 20-year-old even said that it was fair when he was wrecked by Corey Heim and expressed regret over his actions in the post-race interview as well. However, the Niece Motorsports driver said that it was never his intention to wreck Heim and that is something Denny Hamlin simply does not believe.

On a recent episode of the Actions Detrimental podcast, the unapologetic Joe Gibbs Racing star made his thoughts clear as he slammed Carson Hocevar and rubbished his apology.

“The 42 just wiped him out and then was, “Oh I’m sorry I didn’t mean for that to happen.” Yes, you did. You meant to hit him and knock him out of shape. And the difference in the amount of force it takes to knock someone out of shape versus spin them out is a very small margin, like, entirely small, very very small,” Hamlin said.

“So he noticed that he didn’t get him out of shape enough the first time so he tried to do it again. You can argue whether he meant to knock him out of the way or wreck him or whatever. The result was the same, that he spun, the championship leader who had just passed him clean,” he added.

The 23XI Racing co-owner was not the only one who shared this view. One of his drivers, Tyler Reddick, also took to Twitter to slam Carson Hocevar and Denny Hamlin retweeted it. “This dumba** will never learn,” Reddick wrote.

Carson Hocevar will be driving full-time in the Cup Series from 2024 for Spire Motorsports. It is safe to say that he will not have a lot of friends at least in his first season in the division.

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The 20-year-old’s actions were criticized by two of the senior-most drivers on the grid today, Martin Truex Jr. and Kyle Busch. The two Cup Series champions echoed each other sentiments while talking about the Truck Series finale and Carson Hocevar would not have liked what they said.

“I mean there’s aggressive racing, you’re three wide, four wide, five wide sometimes, and it’s hard for the spotters to see going into turn one where everybody is, but as a driver, you have to know your surroundings, and understand what you’re doing and where you’re at, so just a lot of mistakes, a lot of dumb stuff,” Kyle Busch said.

Martin Truex Jr. was a lot more direct with his criticism as he called out both Carson Hocevar and Corey Heim, stating that they raced like a bunch of kids.

“The guy runs you down and passes you and then you run into him once and then the next corner you spin him [Corey Heim] out. I don’t quite understand that one…for the most part those guys raced like a bunch of kids that never had to pay for anything or fix anything that they ever drove in their entire life and that’s not the way you’re supposed to drive as a professional,” the Joe Gibbs Racing veteran said.

It’s safe to say that Carson Hocevar will have to be very careful in his rookie year as a full-time Cup driver. The 20-year-old has a habit of wrecking those around him but behavior like that simply won’t fly in NASCAR’s topmost division.

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