Every NASCAR fan knows better than to mess with Dale Earnhardt Jr. The man won the Most Popular Driver award 15 consecutive times, coming close to matching Bill Elliott’s streak. So when a fan on X attempted to school Dale Jr., claiming “he didn’t know” how voting works during a debate about Cleetus McFarland’s fan base potentially helping Carson Hocevar challenge Elliott’s crown, things got serious fast.

“ I won it 15 times and have a pretty solid understanding of how it works,” Junior hit back.

It all started after Junior casually pointed out that Cleetus would need to campaign daily on social media for Hocevar to seriously threaten Elliott’s grip on MPD. A fan immediately jumped in, accusing him of disrespecting Cleetus and acting like he had insider knowledge, but Dale Jr.’s subtle flex ended the debate before it even began.

After all, NASCAR’s MPD award practically belonged to him at one point. First, it was Bill Elliott, the quiet superstar from Dawsonville, who built one of the sport’s most loyal fan bases during the 1980s and 1990s.

“Awesome Bill from Dawsonville” won the award record 16 times between 1984 and 2002, until he removed his own name from consideration after his final win. Then came the seamless handoff. Dale Jr. won it from 2003 through 2017, a streak that ended only when he retired from full-time racing. Now the Elliott dynasty has rolled straight into the modern era through Chase Elliott. The Hendrick Motorsports star has captured the award eight consecutive times since 2018.

Incredibly, a member of either the Elliott or Earnhardt family has now held the honour for 35 consecutive years. At his current pace, Chase is on course to tie his father’s record of 16 wins by 2027, which would make the Elliotts the only family in NASCAR history to hold the record twice. That is exactly why Dale Junior had no patience for fans questioning his opinion this week.

At just 23 years old, Carson Hocevar has already proven he belongs among NASCAR’s headline makers. His breakthrough moment arrived at Talladega Superspeedway, where he secured his first-ever Cup Series victory after 91 starts.

He managed to survive the chaos and add his name to NASCAR history as the sport’s 208th Cup Series winner, making him a new fan favorite. Along with McFarland’s army of fans, the case for his MPD seemed like a serious one to fans.

It’s no secret that McFarland has built one of the largest motorsports audiences on the Internet with over 4.7 million YouTube subscribers and billions of total views across his content empire. Richard Childress Racing has hence leaned into his massive online following with reports suggesting that race streams alone have approached 1 million viewers.

If even a fraction of those fans suddenly adopted Hocevar as their favourite cup driver, the young Spire Motorsports driver could absolutely see his popularity explode.

Still, he is not an immediate threat per Junior, after all, Elliott’s fan base is not just large, it is generational. That said, Jr. still agrees that the fight will start soon.

“I believe there will be years where Chase has some real competition,” said Dale Jr. as a matter of fact on the DJD podcast. “And I honestly feel like that’s happening already. I would love to know just how close the battle is. There will be stars that will come and go, and Hocevar is in a position to take advantage of this thing.”

And with the 23-year-old’s appearance at the recently held Met Gala in New York, Junior is more than happy with the fame and name of NASCAR being pushed forward.

Junior gives ultimate nod to Hocevar’s Met Gala show

Carson Hocevar backed up the Talladega win with the truck series victory at Texas before delivering another major statement during Cup qualifying last weekend.

That surge in popularity extended far beyond racing circles. He was invited to the Met Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, sharing the spotlight with global celebrities, including Kim Kardashian, Gigi Hadid, Bad Bunny, and Beyoncé. He also became the first NASCAR driver to attend the event since Jeff Gordon in 2010.

The appearance sparked mixed reactions within the NASCAR community, but Junior believed this was exactly the kind of exposure the sport needed.

“Listen, I think that was fantastic,” he said. “And the reason why, I would have never expected a driver to be invited to that. I don’t even know what it is…We need our drivers in these unusual spaces, connecting with people that aren’t connected to our sport.”

The timing of that exposure matters for NASCAR. Race broadcast once averaged nearly 10 million viewers in the early 2000s, but by 2025, the number reportedly dropped to around 2.45 million per race.

And while Hocevar admitted the Met Gala fell far outside his comfort zone, NASCAR clearly sees value in drivers reaching an audience beyond the racetrack and bringing new fans into the sport.