NASCAR Cup Series
Talladega Superspeedway
Team Chevy Driver Quotes
October 24, 2026
Carson Hocevar, driver of the No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet, met with the media in advance of the NASCAR Cup Series qualifying session at Talladega Superspeedway. Hocevar returns as the track’s most recent NASCAR Cup Series winner, a feat that also marked his first career victory in the sport’s top division.
Media Availability Quotes:
When you come back here, what is the feeling that you have, and how much did that victory change your life, and certainly going forward with the opportunities or just kind of you in general since then?
“My life hasn’t been the same, but it’s just more fun because a lot of it is very visual memories. I remember what everything looks like and what we experienced and all. A lot of my friends… I’m glad I won here of all places. My agent was like, ‘Man, with Carson winning everybody wants to come here, all his friends want VIP passes. I was like, “Dude, it’s Talladega. They were gonna come anyways. … It’s by far the most fun track you could play your first one at.”
Is there anything specific that feels life changing for you since you are a NASCAR Cup Series winner now?
“I think more so that you just say Cup Series winner. They don’t say Rookie of the Year like six years ago. I don’t remember whatever it was. They’re rather than saying Cup Series driver or Cup Series Rookie of the Year, they say Cup Series winner. Whether you have one or a hundred, they’re just gonna say Cup Series winner unless you win a championship. That’s a really cool title I’ll have for the rest of my life.
NASCAR fined Zane Smith $50,000 for running into you after the race last week. How hard of a hit was it? Did it jerk things in your hands? Did you think it put you in danger in any way?
“For me, it was just unexpected. I was looking around and I think I was looking down and I hit. My mindset was like, ‘Who did I just run into?’ Because I thought somebody stopped in front of me. Then I looked around in front of me and there was nobody in front of me. I was like, okay. I looked behind me and I was like, ‘I got hit’. I was like, okay, well. Because I remember I think it was Austin Dillon at Martinsville when we were going five miles an hour coming to pit road, and my cool box was broken and it was blowing hot air and we ran terrible. I was just trying to get my helmet off as fast as possible. Everybody checked up or somebody stopped or somebody walked in front of him and he stopped at the last second and I ran into him so I was like, ‘Crap.’ I figured I did that again somehow. But no, I mean it was a hard hit for sure. But more so the fact it was unexpected for me. Yeah, that’s all I got.”
You posted telling your fans to vote for Kyle Busch for Most Popular Driver. Just what made you want to do that in a year where maybe you had a chance to win?
“I’m gonna have way more years and everything. I think keeping up with tradition… obviously, (Dale Earnhardt Sr.) won it the year he passed, and I think Kyle was the most popular driver here at one point, right? The whole garage and everybody, every article… It’s crazy. A driver that was probably super hated or not appreciated enough. He’s super appreciated now after his passing, and I think it just feels right. I texted somebody and I was like, ‘Hey, just go ahead and take my name off.’ They used to be PR and really close to Kyle, and they’re like, ‘He wouldn’t want to win it by default.’ And so I was like, okay, I’ll just keep my name off then if that’s what you feel like. I’ll just urge my fans to go vote for him. I’d be very disappointed if they voted for me. We can try and win another year.”
The video last week of you and Blaney at Driver Intros… How has your relationship changed with him in any way since the thing in Bristol?
“We were cool before. At New Hampshire he didn’t have a ride back after he won. And so he got on the Spire plane because we were the only plane that had an extra seat. He likes the WhistlinDiesel guys a lot and he enjoys them. He always asked me for the last few months about what it’s like to go over there and what they got going on. He’d always had interest in the tank. At Phoenix, I was talking to him about, ‘Hey man, the tank comes next week. It’s pretty cool and stuff.’ But yeah, we were cool already before.”
It seems as though realistically you’re not in contention for the championship. Over the last maybe two or three races, it seems you have given those drivers who are still in contention a little more grace or space when you’ve been racing them — is that true? Was that a conscious decision that you made?
“We haven’t been very fast the last two weeks. We were okay, but we haven’t been super fast. When we were fast, I don’t think I gave them a lot of grace, obviously at Bristol and whatnot. Just trying to finish as good as we can in these things. When you’re going into it, we weren’t probably gonna race for a championship, but it’s just building the notebook of everybody gets faster and everybody gets better. You’re racing against the best guys that it’s tough to build points on them. So really it’s just going through the motions of the year and enjoying it. When there’s no expectations, there’s no pressure. … Ultimately, we’re just trying to have fun with it, enjoy it, and know that as it becomes the norm of being in the Chase, the expectations get higher, the fun gets probably a little less.”
Your win here in the spring greatly elevated your profile, not just within NASCAR, but also with all the national media attention you got and all the things that you got to do and everything that went with that. What would you say that in your experience here the last five months or so, what has that taught you about handling fame, success, things of that nature?
“I don’t think anything’s really changed other than I signed a few more autographs. But I’ve always enjoyed it. Obviously the crowds are a lot bigger, and I get recognized in a lot weirder spots and a lot more spots. There’s a lot more female fans for sure, which has been cool. All of it’s been awesome for me. I remember walking through places when I was a kid wishing that somebody would recognize me because I raced quarter-midgets. None of it is like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe this’ or ‘Man, this sucks’ or ‘Man, I wish I could walk somewhere and hide.’ I greatly appreciate it and look forward to it and know that I’m doing good. That’s what a driver should be and that’s what the sport should be. You should be able to really walk anywhere, especially within these walls you shouldn’t be able to walk anywhere without getting recognized.”
Have you thought yet of what driver intros are going to be like on Sunday and how Talladega might receive you now and moving forward as a winner here?
“I haven’t thought about driver intros. I was more thinking about how do I one-up that. And I have some ideas that I think would be good, and I think they’d only really work at places like a Daytona or Talladega where I could really ask for forgiveness on that. … But I feel like these tracks kind of fit the ideas I have.”
You have been in at least contention for the win at every single drafting race this year, including the one where you did win here in the spring. As you gain more experience in the Cup Series and these sorts of drafting tracks do you feel like you have gained a better sense over time of knowing which moves are going to work and which ones aren’t worth the trouble?
“Definitely trial by error. What I’m most proud of our superspeedway (races) is obviously Talladega, as the fans would say, is gridlocked and very difficult to pass. Atlanta is the exact opposite. Daytona is somewhere in between, and I think we’ve been up front or in contention at all of them. The one we won was the only time I’ve ever had a Chevy on my back bumper. Otherwise we finished second, third, fourth. Obviously you just kind of drag race to the line and whoever has the most help probably wins there. A lot of it is manufacturer-based, obviously. But I’ve just enjoyed that aspect of it – that at all the different styles of racing that the superspeedways present, we’re up front at all of them, and that’s what I enjoy and feel good about it. I think we’re one of the best at it right now. Everybody else studies and gets better. For me, I don’t think I ever watched a single lap of data from a superspeedway race ever. It’s just all adaptive for me, and everybody else has different ideas and ways of going with it. Right now our ways are going good. If the field somehow figures it out and a lot of them get really good or really comfortable at it, maybe I’ll have to adjust. But right now I think we’re in a really good spot.”
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