Richard Childress doesn’t always get involved in the mid-race chatter, but when a wreck, triggered by one of NASCAR’s most promising prospects, ends up disrupting his driver’s race, he does share quite a few strong comments. And that is exactly what happened at Michigan, as Carson Hocevar, unsurprisingly, was the center of another massive wreck, triggering comments from even his competitors.

“I hope at some point he figures it out. I know I’m not going to show anything to him for a long time,” Austin Dillon blurted out on his team radio shortly after the massive wreck, promising to cut no slack for Hocevar in a similar situation in the future.

Even Richard Childress didn’t hold back: “Any time their eyes are that close together, it means they’ve got a small brain,” he said.

Shortly after the restart, Hocevar, who had been running at the top throughout the day, got a little too close to John Hunter Nemechek and attempted to move to the bottom, but it was too late, and he ended up making contact. As the cars had just crossed the start/finish line, they were still stacked together, and that little contact ended up triggering a massive chain reaction.

“You can count on Hocevar to junk up s-” Nemechek said, being the first victim of the massive crash.

Apart from Nemechek and Dillon, many big names were included in the massive wreck. This included Denny Hamlin, Ty Gibbs, and Tyler Reddick. Ironically, however, one of the drivers who made it clearly out of the crash and managed to stick within the top 10 was Carson Hocevar. This was primarily because he had already separated himself from the rest of the field towards the bottom by the time JHN rammed into the other cars.

“Seems like he’s at least good for a few of those each week,” William Byron said, reacting to the wreck. 

It has become quite common for Hocevar to be the center of wrecks during the races. His aggressive driving style, although loved by many, has even helped him put on some rather impressive finishes, but it does result in wrecks like this one. Something very similar happened at Atlanta earlier this year, when, during a late restart, he attempted to split apart the battle between Christopher Bell and Bubba Wallace in the lead and ended up wrecking the field.

However, this time around, the stakes are quite different for most drivers. 

Carson Hocevar’s wreck brings down Tyler Reddick’s championship advantage

Winning five races right at the start of the season gave Reddick the advantage of a lifetime. He is the strongest contender for the championship right now, being trailed by his team owner, Denny Hamlin. However, the Chase format, unlike last year, does not prioritize race wins, and hence, the drivers need to deliver top-notch performances every passing week to have a strong shot at the title.

Although he had an amazing performance initially in the season, Reddick is being chased down by Hamlin at quite a strong pace. In fact, a DNF is the last thing that he would want at this stage, especially with only a few races remaining in the Regular season.

Before the start of this race, Reddick had a 97-point advantage on Hamlin in second place in the table. But if the latter simply finishes the race, the advantage would shrink, and considering the top – 10 runs the #11 team has been having throughout the day, he might as well end up delivering a far stronger performance.

This wasn’t exactly an issue for Reddick earlier in the race, as he had managed to take the lead over Hamlin and was even in strong contention to win the race. Ironically, if he had been more towards the back on the lap 83 restart, Reddick might as well have been in the clear and could have continued.

At the same time, Carson Hocevar still seems to be in a race-winning contention despite triggering the massive wreck. The aggressive comments from the drivers and team owners, especially Richard Childress, are quite justified considering the situation they were put in. RCR hasn’t had the strongest of seasons so far, and this race seemed to be promising, until the wreck hampered it.