Good news for Denny Hamlin and anyone else who was worried about the maturity of those inside Spire Motorsports. We now have official confirmation that there indeed are adults running the Chevrolet team. This news, of course, comes on the back of comments that the Joe Gibbs Racing veteran made on his podcast after Darlington.
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While those questions were raised because of the antics of Carson Hocevar, it was the No. 71 Spire Chevrolet driver Michael McDowell who provided the confirmation on adults operating Spire Motorsports. McDowell explained that he isn’t online much, and he feels bad for the guy whose job it is to get him up-to-date before media interactions.
“There are a lot of adults at Spire,” McDowell said in a video posted to Instagram by Official Speed Freaks. “There are. I understand the comment. I do. I understand what he’s saying because not everything’s public. Nobody knows the conversations that I’m having with Carson behind closed doors. And that’s how I’m wired anyways. I wouldn’t want everybody to know.”
The comment that McDowell said he understood came after Hocevar’s bust-up with RFK Racing’s No. 6, Brad Keselowski, in the first Chase race at Darlington.
Keselowski held ground against Hocevar on fresher tires, and the Spire 77 driver nudged the departing RFK owner-driver twice to spin him out.
“There are no adults in the room, clearly, in that building,” were Hamlin’s comments on his podcast. “No adults. That’s my opinion. Because how can you honestly think that that’s what’s best for your company? If you’re running a serious organization, I think they’re unserious.”
Hamlin said that because Hocevar was made an enemy of a driver who wasn’t even in the Chase and a dangerous one to make an enemy out of. But it wasn’t just one track. Off track, Keselowski warned Hocevar of payback, while the Spire driver showed his usual don’t-care mentality and said that he wasn’t sure how Keselowski spun.
But it wasn’t just at the circuit. It escalated when Hocevar went to his social media and announced a six percent discount on his merchandise as an added dig to spinning the No. 6 driver out of his way, which is why McDowell said he understands the perspective.
“We all know what we’re doing,” McDowell said. “And we have a young knucklehead driver that likes stirring the pot. But for the rest of us, we’re working really hard, trying to make sure that our race cars are going fast and our process continues to get better and better.”
And the problem here is that the Keselowski incident and Hamlin’s comments thereafter aren’t a one-off instance. Two races later, Hocevar tapped Ryan Blaney out of race-winning contention at Bristol Motor Speedway. While that incident turned violent on pit road, on social media he repeated what he did to Keselowski: he announced a 12 percent discount on his merchandise, a dig at the No. 12 Team Penske Ford driver.
Announcing discounts isn’t the only thing that Hocevar does that has drivers annoyed. There was chatter amongst the garage that Hocevar does things for both the ‘clicks’ and the ‘clips.’ One such instance was when Kyle Larson, on a podcast, called Hocevar’s behavior childlike. After qualifying ahead of Larson in the following race, Hocevar used that same quote to take a dig back at Larson.
On the same podcast where Hamlin said that there are no adults at Spire, he also said that he didn’t want to give Hocevar the clip that the Spire driver wants. Because he didn’t want to start something with Hocevar that would either lead to something on social media or, worse, an on-track scuffle in the midst of his championship battle.
Interestingly, in that same timeline, two races after Hamlin’s ‘no adults’ comments, Hocevar took it into an entirely different layer when he introduced himself as “Carson Hocevar, driver of the No. 77 Joe Gibbs Racing Chevrolet,” during the driver introductions at Bristol, the same race that ended with him landing two right hooks on Ryan Blaney.
The Joe Gibbs Racing Chevrolet comment was particularly problematic given the legal battle ongoing between Spire and JGR over Chris Gabehart. The legalities of that battle have seen each team go hard in court, making Hocevar’s carelessness about the matter nothing more than a point towards proving Hamlin right.
At least in the last race at Charlotte, Hocevar didn’t have any negative comments come his way, nor did he make any ultra-aggressive moves on the track to tick off his fellow drivers. But it will take way more than one race for drivers to start seeing Hocevar in a different light.