NASCAR Cup Series
Kansas Speedway
Team Chevy Driver Quotes
September 25, 2026
Carson Hocevar, driver of the No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet, met with the media in advance of the NASCAR Cup Series race weekend at Kansas Speedway.
Media Availability Quotes:
How aware are you of what (Ryan) Blaney’s been saying this week? Did you watch the clips from the podcast? I heard you reference what he said on the podcast. Did you consume the whole thing? What did you think of what he’s been saying?
“Yeah, I saw it, and I was shocked that he went on there, obviously. But, you know, he’s very scrappy. I’ve been cool with him. You know, before, I thought we’d been racing really well together. There are a lot of times, like at Atlanta, where he’s coming out on top, but it’s me and him. He’s the only Ford up there. I’m the only Chevy up there. And then, it’s us versus the Toyota’s, so we kind of had to help each other at times. So, that’s been a good working relationship-ish.
And then, yeah, we’ve been cool. I think Ryan’s one of the coolest guys in the garage. I mean, he’s got a cool mustache, drinks whiskey and all that, right? I think he looks the part really well. I thought he made me more of a fan, honestly. When he went on there, I had respect for that, for sure. He could have held some ice on his eye and whatnot, but he went right out there and did it, and I have the utmost respect for that.
I didn’t want to hit him, and looking back, I one-hundred percent see where he wanted to maybe just throw a shove in there and then yell. I think we both saw each other, but in the moment, you’re not going to see that. You’re going to predict the worst.”
Is there any part of Saturday night that you regret, as far as any of the post-race stuff?
“No, I don’t think so. You know, I was a little worried. My dad’s probably the least controversial or confrontational person I’ve ever met in my life. He’s got a local business, so he freaks out if he gets a bad Google review. So, yeah, I texted him and I was like, man, sorry about that. He was proud that I defended myself. I feel like that’s what you’d want to see out of a son, per se.
I feel like if we’re racing anywhere lower than second, I would maybe look at it differently. But I think Blaney would too, right? I think neither one of us would have put ourselves near that spot. But at Bristol, you’ve kind of got to be second or at least where the choose is. You line up behind Ty (Gibbs) there and that’s probably the best possible spot to win the race. You’re going to be the most aggressive just trying to hold on to that spot, so I think that’s just the Bristol experience.”
The handful of incidents that you’ve been involved in that’s triggered the most, I guess, animus, it seems to be situations where there’s a perceived code that you should maybe lift in that situation. It’s a question of the give or take. What is your personal philosophy, when and where, to give someone that break that they seem to expect you to give that you’re seemingly not?
“Yeah, I mean, I get pointed by periodically throughout races, and I point people by, as well, right? But certain situations, obviously, I think you want to be as aggressive as possible because this car is obviously really tough to pass with in dirty air. But at the same time, I think I bear a lot of the responsibility for probably 95 percent of those incidents. Bristol, maybe, is in the minority there.
But at the same time, I think similar to Bristol, if you kind of play the defense, I think this car loads the defense, right? You can aero block and sometimes you’ve got to blitz and just see if you can make some aggressive moves to catch the quarterback off guard, per se, right?
For me, I gladly point people by, especially the ones I probably have dumped or maybe owe one towards me. A lot of it’s just trying to get every spot you can and knowing when that spot is available, similar to a second at Bristol towards the end of the race. You know, you might not get that spot back. Especially for me in that spot, I got loose and Blaney got under me, right? I was like, dang, I want to try and still fight for this. I just think a lot of it’s racing. A lot of it’s circumstantial. I think the Chase probably raises that intensity for everybody. Sometimes the defense raises their bar, and then things just get elevated and you’re playing a game of chicken with racecars.”
Ordinarily, like a week after a fight or an on-track thing, there’s still a lot of tension. We saw that with Brad (Keselowski) and the RFK guys after Darlington. There seems to be this weird sort of like kinsmanship or at least some mutual respect. You’ve talked about how much you admire him, and he’s not really beat you up, really, publicly. Is there an opportunity or a willingness on your end to go seek him out this weekend and say, hey, let’s try to figure this out so it doesn’t linger on the rest of the chase or next year?
“Yeah, I mean, for me, I’ve watched this sport all my life. This tends to be the stuff that brings people closer together and you laugh about it. I’ve never had a problem, really, with him on a racetrack. We’ve been running good together. I think he’s as stand-up of a guy as he could be. He could look at it and know that that was just racing and whatnot. In the heat of the moment, ever driver is going to be biased towards themselves. And then you look at it and maybe look at things differently. You know, I looked at some things differently, obviously, from the situation. But at the same time, when you’re in the heat of the moment, it’s just the heat of the moment.”
I don’t know if you saw Joey’s (Logano) clip earlier in the week, but he said, essentially, if you didn’t have the reputation you did, you probably would have won the race last week. How do you balance that going forward because the ultimate goal is winning?
“Yeah, I mean, I think that’s possible. But at the same time, I had a lot of fun racing with Ty (Gibbs). Him and I have been letting each other go and been racing a lot, super respectfully, right? But towards the end of the race, and obviously with a special tribute car, obviously he’s going to be wanting to win with that with how fast they were. But also, for the 20 extra points with how close he is to a shot for the points championship. I thought we’d been racing each other fine, and I enjoyed it. It seemed like a really good race. It was fun to go back and watch, honestly, even though we didn’t win. I’d much rather be in it than get lucky, per se, and not be fast enough. I was proud of everything we did, and I don’t know that I could have done anything differently looking back. Hopefully, the next time we got to Bristol, we’re just as fast and in position again.”
A few minutes ago, you referenced looking at some things differently, looking back on it. What do you look back on differently, or what led you to say that?
“Yeah, I looked at the fight and whatnot. You know, hearing Blaney’s comments, I just saw his point of view and I was like, oh okay… that makes sense why he wasn’t expecting me to defend myself and vice versa, right? So yeah, you just look at that, and then you try to look at the race and what you could have done differently. Just look at different points of views. I’m not saying I could have or would have done anything differently, you just look at it from other perspectives. You look at it from every possible angle because that’s how you learn from it.”
He said he felt like it was a 50-50 type of thing, so do you see it that way now?
“Yeah, I thought so. I thought the same. I thought it was that he was wanting to put me in a spot where I would lift, and I was trying to stay in there long enough that he would give me a lane, right? And you’re kind of just playing that game of, you cut me a break or not, and a lot of times when you’re not talking to one another, obviously, during the race, you’re going to be biased and hope the other guy does what you’re trying to push him to do.”
Here at Kansas Speedway in the spring, you had a very fast car, and if it wasn’t for pit road issues, you could have been a lot closer to the front. Talking to Luke (Lambert), he says that you guys have really put in a lot of work with this place, and he’s worked with you a lot about versatility, some lanes and things like that. Can you talk about how you feel like you’ve gotten better with the work that you’ve put into this place to potentially have had, if everything had worked out, maybe a race-winning car last time and maybe have it this weekend?
“Yeah, I mean, we’ve just been working pretty hard on this place. You know, we felt like mile-and-a-halves, we’ve been pretty good at, but this one, we were always just kind of okay. I thought in the spring, they made a lot of progress on our car. Ultimately, you’re trying to replicate that or improve upon that. So luckily for the Chase teams, you get a little extra sim time, and the team wants to take advantage of all that.”
I know you mentioned your dad earlier, but I know after the race Jeff (Dickerson) was surprised just how you were able to defend yourself. Were you a little surprised with yourself and what you were able to do?
“Yeah, I was surprised, and so was everybody else. But luckily, I have a height advantage on Ryan, I guess, so that helps my athleticism. If we were in a running competition, I’m screwed, though. No matter who it is, I can’t run. So luckily, standing still, I can do okay and defend myself.”
Just looking overall, at least in terms of the Chase, I know that your expectation going in was more of we’ll see what happens. So far, has this perhaps surpassed at least your expectations of what your mindset was from the start of the Chase?
“Yeah, I feel like when you start focusing on the Chase, you start running hypotheticals, or you just start focusing on the points. You start running hypotheticals through your head of – oh, if we could have run better than this guy or that guy. Maybe you’re running sixth, but the guy you’re running with in the points is running fifth, and all of a sudden, you’re going to start overextending and driving too hard when you could have just ran sixth. So, for us, we’re just ultimately focusing on the race finishes and just kind of letting the points play out. If anything, we’ll look at where we’re at, but I want to be blind of who I’m racing with, just because I want to race the whole field.
But I think it’s been solid for us. We’re in the single digits right now and less than triple digits away from the points lead, so I don’t think that’s too bad.”
You spoke in the past about having a kind of ‘bring-it-on mentality’ for other drivers. If someone wants to do something about it, to do something about it. Now that someone kind of has, do you think anything will change in the future, or is it the same mindset going forward?
“No, I mean for me, I race really, really aggressively. The biggest thing that I don’t want to be is a hypocrite. Obviously, if I’m going to get raced really hard, I’m going to be understanding of that. For me, I just love racing. There’s a lot of times where there’s a reason the best car is not always going to win the race. You’re trying to do every possible scenario and every possible race technique to outrun a guy that’s got a faster car than you. Otherwise, we would just do chassis dynos and see who can run the fastest lap, reward it and send everybody home.”
Have you given any thought to what your celebratory post-race might look like at Talladega if you were able to go back-to-back?
“I don’t know. I’ll probably not run into the wall again for multiple reasons… I don’t want the win taken away this time (laughs).
But I don’t know. I hope to do it again. I hope the crowd gets as loud. It would be a lot of fun. I don’t know if anybody has done it since Dale Earnhardt Jr. did it in 2004, I think. But, yeah, so that would be really cool for me, obviously. We tend to run really well at the superspeedways, and I enjoy those probably the most. Being an Earnhardt fan, both Jr. and Sr., obviously, they were really good at those, so it’s fun to at least just have one in the column right now.”
About General Motors
General Motors (NYSE:GM) is driving the future of transportation, leveraging advanced technology to build safer, smarter, and lower emission cars, trucks, and SUVs. GM’s Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, and GMC brands offer a broad portfolio of innovative gasoline-powered vehicles and the industry’s widest range of EVs, as we move to an all-electric future.
GM Motorsports, including the Cadillac Formula 1® Team develops and proves advanced technologies in the most demanding environments, accelerating innovation in performance, safety, efficiency, and electrification for its production vehicles. Cadillac Racing is one of the leading manufacturers in the IMSA and FIA World Endurance Championships (WEC). Chevrolet competes in single seaters in the US IndyCar series, and in NASCAR with multiple team partners and drivers. Corvette customer teams compete in GT series across the globe including IMSA and WEC. Learn more at GM.com.
