Did You Notice? … Carson Hocevar’s bank account is $50,000 lighter these days? Hocevar was fined that amount by Spire Motorsports, the race team he drives for, after stating his unfiltered opinion about NASCAR’s decision to race in Mexico City on a livestream.
Hocevar’s answer went viral during race weekend, in the midst of the first ever Cup Series visit to the track. The video version of what he said is below.
“This is how I put it,” Hocevar said on the livestream, ending with sarcasm. “This whole experience. If the travel was better, if getting here was easier, if you felt safer getting to and from everywhere, if it wasn’t such a s–thole, if the track limits were a little better enforced, if it was going to be a little bit better of a race and it wasn’t so … if you [didn’t] feel so locked down that you can’t leave anywhere, it would be a great experience. It would be an absolutely great experience.
“If you take all those out, it’s unbelievable. It’s great.”
Repeat: Those comments cost $50,000. And did I mention the cultural sensitivity and bias-awareness training that comes with it?
It’s important to note Spire imposed the penalty, although the official statement noted it was “in close consultation with NASCAR.” It’s the most public rebuke of a race team against its own driver we’ve seen in several years, especially when it comes to a rising star Spire plans to keep. Typically, if owners are going this far with a penalty, they’re padding the cash with a pink slip and directions to the local unemployment office.
The upside of the consequences, no matter what you think of them, is that the money is going to great causes. Three different charities will split the cash, all of which are Mexico-based and focused on providing the country with help on child malnutrition, education, housing, and generalized humanitarian relief.
Hocevar, upon receiving the fine, immediately took to X and apologized, despite growing fan backlash surrounding the incident.
For the record, I don’t think Hocevar’s comments were in good taste. A public apology is indeed what you’d expect from a 22-year-old prospect in this spot with their employer, especially after spending the past few weeks in the spotlight after wrecking, then sparring with, Ricky Stenhouse, Jr.
But $50,000? Really?
What message is a NASCAR community who wants to pursue an on-track philosophy of “Boys, have at it” trying to send? We’re far from the level of Kyle Larson’s racial slurs that got him sacked from Chip Ganassi Racing (and rightfully so) in 2020. Or a type of physical fight that ended with a someone seriously hurt.
Instead, Hocevar got fined for … echoing the concerns a lot of people in and around the sport had heading into the weekend. Those were fears many in the NASCAR community themselves shared — they just did it privately and with a better choice of words.
Let’s start with Hocevar’s “if travel was better, if getting here was easier.” At the time, the garage was reeling from a NASCAR Xfinity Series plane incident that left several drivers scrambling to make it to Mexico in the first place.
Travel schedules became so difficult for so many in the NXS garage NASCAR had to postpone practice by a day. Meanwhile, the haulers for all teams had a carefully orchestrated, days-long marathon to make it to Mexico City with security teams closely monitoring the whole way, through several areas of the country deemed unsafe without proper supervision. (Now, those same haulers are hauling ass, a 2,500-mile drive not just to cross the border but to head to Pocono Raceway in the northeast United States).
Yeah, it sounds like travel could have been better planned out. And getting haulers to racetracks are typically a whole lot easier than what every race team went through over the past week.
As for “If you felt safer getting to and from everywhere, if it wasn’t such a s–thole.” That’s probably the sentence that drew the fine. The language was inflammatory, and to be fair, most felt much differently. Where the majority of teams and personnel stayed was in a great area of the city (one where I have personally been, the first time NASCAR went down there), and reports I’m getting back from sources are giving two thumbs up for both accommodations and atmosphere.
And yet … Not everyone likes every restaurant, every movie, every neighborhood. There are also factual reasons for people to fear Mexico: 17 of the 50 cities with the highest homicide rates in the world come from this country, war zones excluded (you can look up the list yourself). The U.S. State Department currently lists an advisory on their website for people “to exercise increased caution” when visiting Mexico City “due to crime.”
Hocevar wasn’t referring to a specific race or type of person with his comment. He was just saying he thinks the city stinks! You can find such language on your local Google reviews of controversial places and things, rated “H” for “honesty.”
Hocevar also felt like he couldn’t move about the city because he was scared for his own safety. It’s not an unusual feeling for athletes on international trips to countries with high crime rates: Both the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers shared concerns about their trip to Brazil just last fall. Former Eagles cornerback Darius Slay even claimed on his podcast last September, “They [the NFL] already told us not to leave the hotel [due to high crime rates].”
Slay wasn’t fined for his comments. But over here in stock car land, Hocevar is paying a heavy price for sharing his feelings. Let’s just say our current president has said 10 times worse about Mexico, and I don’t see him facing any consequences.
One scenario is someone important got their feelings hurt here. Perhaps it was someone essential with setting up the Mexico City arrangement, or Hocevar’s primary sponsor for the weekend, Totalplay, a Mexican-based communications company, causing him to get the brunt of their wrath. Or perhaps Spire is also trying to prove a point, part of a larger effort to rein in one of the sport’s more aggressive personalities.
If that’s true … I hope it’s not.
In this very space last week, I talked about the Earnhardt documentary taking the nation by storm and how Dale Earnhardt’s brash, take-no-prisoners style is missed by a generation’s worth of NASCAR fans today. I mentioned Hocevar as the closest thing we currently have to that, someone that when asked about wrecking Stenhouse responded with the equivalent of a shoulder shrug and “I’m not going to change my ways.”
Could you ever imagine Earnhardt getting fined over something like this Mexico comment? Perhaps he and Bill France, Jr. would have a private conversation about it, sure. But a public neutering, apology tour, bias-awareness training and cultural sensitivity?
That seems to be the opposite of the brash, hyper-masculine image NASCAR has been aiming to portray. A culture a lot of their fans not only expected, but celebrated.
There’s a conflict here. How can you expect drivers to say what they think when those words come at such a cost? What you’ll get is more people keeping their mouth shuts and their opinions hidden, a trend which makes the bad ones worse. It’s hard to change what someone thinks when they don’t tell you what they’re thinking in the first place.
Hocevar has some lessons to learn here. But he’s not the only one who should be learning. At some point, corporations and NASCAR have to give their people a little more breathing room.
Suffocation comes with a whole lot more consequences than a $50,000 fine.
Follow Tom Bowles on X at @NASCARBowles
The author of Did You Notice? (Wednesdays) Tom spends his time overseeing Frontstretch’s 40+ staff members as its majority owner and Editor-in-Chief. Based outside Philadelphia, Bowles is a two-time Emmy winner in NASCAR television and has worked in racing production with FOX, TNT, and ESPN while appearing on-air for SIRIUS XM Radio and FOX Sports 1's former show, the Crowd Goes Wild. He most recently consulted with SRX Racing, helping manage cutting-edge technology and graphics that appeared on their CBS broadcasts during 2021 and 2022.
You can find Tom’s writing here, at CBSSports.com and Athlonsports.com, where he’s been an editorial consultant for the annual racing magazine for 15 years.