NEWTON, Iowa — In a race that featured a season-high 12 cautions, flaring tempers and a multitude of unhappy drivers, it was Carson Hocevar who, once again, found himself at the center of controversy following the conclusion of Sunday’s (Aug. 3) Iowa Corn 350 at Iowa Speedway.
With 121 laps to go, Hocevar and Zane Smith were battling for 23rd in turn 1 when Hocevar washed up the track and made contact, which backed the No. 38 car into the outside wall.
“I just got loose and was wrecking myself, and then (Zane) was right there,” Hocevar told Frontstretch.
Smith returned to the track two laps down and attempted to get even eight laps later, as he entered turn 1 to the inside of the Hocevar before hanging a right in the middle of the turn. Smith failed to make contact, and the two drivers completed the final 113 laps of the race without incident.
“He took a swing at me nobody saw,” Hocevar said. “Turned dead right and tried to wreck me at one point. Must be Billy Badass.”
After the race, Smith’s crew chief Ryan Bergenty confronted Hocevar on pit road, furious about the on-track incident.
“When are you gonna learn how to fucking drive, dude?” Bergenty asked. “I mean, you wiped us the f*ck out.”
Bergenty and Smith weren’t the only ones that took issue with Hocevar. With 98 laps to go, Hocevar, Shane van Gisbergen and Joey Logano made contact in a tight three-wide squeeze when Hocevar dived to the bottom entering turn 1, which prompted van Gisbergen to give the following message to his team over the radio:
“Hey, go apologize to the No. 22 (team). The w*nker in the No. 77 just shoved us three wide.”
It’s worth noting that Hocevar was far from the only driver at the center of controversy in the race. There were seven cautions for cause within quick succession to start the final stage, and Hocevar himself got spun at the end of stage two.
“I got cleaned out (earlier),” Hocevar said I just think everybody cleans. It’s just a product of just trying on restarts and then hitting the stops and getting loose.”
One of the cautions at the start of the final stage was an incident where Chase Briscoe lost control on the inside line and spun fellow Toyotas Christopher Bell and Tyler Reddick in an eerily similar manner to how Hocevar spun Smith.
Numerous drivers earned the right to be frustrated with each other following Sunday’s race, but Hocevar — as arguably the most polarizing driver of the 2025 season — was the only driver confronted after the race was over.
With multiple post-race confrontations — most notably with Ricky Stenhouse Jr. at Mexico City — will Iowa spark a change? Preliminary findings show that Hocevar, as he has done all season, looks to be carrying on with business as usual after his seventh top-10 finish of the year.
Stephen Stumpf is the NASCAR Content Director for Frontstretch and is a three-year veteran of the site. His weekly column is “Stat Sheet,” and he formerly wrote "4 Burning Questions" for three years. He also writes commentaries, contributes to podcasts, edits articles and is frequently at the track for on-site coverage.
Find Stephen on Twitter @stephen_stumpf