AUSTIN, Texas — They say everything is bigger in Texas, and that’s certainly true for the attention Carson Hocevar has received for his assertive racing style.
After ruffling fenders with multiple drivers in the closing laps at Atlanta’s EchoPark Speedway, the No. 77 Spire Motorsports driver kick-started Cup Series media availabilities early Saturday morning at Circuit of The Americas and addressed how his on-track style is drawing comparisons to that of “The Intimidator” Dale Earnhardt.
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“I mean, everybody’s open to their own interpretation,” Hocevar said. “I feel like you’re always just going to be compared to somebody, whether they’re good or bad. You know, if I was really, really slow, there’s probably comparisons of guys that were really, really slow back in the day, too. I just go out and race, and I enjoy it. I take it as a massive compliment, you know, from Richard Petty, Kyle Petty, Dale Jr., all of them making comparisons. I’m appreciative of that. I would like to just have half the success any of those guys did.”
For one to earn comparisons to a 76-win, seven-time Cup Series titleholder, being consistently in contention for victories and running up front needs to be the norm.
That’s been the case for the start of 2026 for Hocevar.
The 23-year-old firecracker been within striking distance of his first career Cup win on the final lap at both Daytona and Atlanta, leading the bell lap in the “Great American Race” before being spun entering Turn 1. The speed has never been a question when discussing Hocevar, but rather his style that’s put him in precarious situations that either take him out of winning contention or take others out.
Hocevar will tell you there is no one driver he is trying to emulate.
“I think if you’re building a perfect race car driver, I think you want to be able to emulate a bit of this guy, a bit of this guy [and] a bit of this guy,” Hocevar said. “You know, you don’t want to just emulate one whole driver. I think you just want to be successful or be versatile in all areas. There’s not, like, a direct style. I just want the style of whatever it takes to succeed, whether it’s being aggressive in this spot or letting somebody else be aggressive for me and taking that spot. It’s just all circumstantial. You’re racing at different corners at different times. You’re playing different people, right? You know, it’s not like any other sport where you’re just playing the same guy over and over and over. You have one restart, and you have totally different guys than you’ve been racing around all day. You’re going to have to be able to change with them.”
In season No. 3 at the Cup level, Hocevar is sensing the narrative change for the entire Spire Motorsports organization as he creates waves up toward the front of the field now.
Going from a one-car team at select events to a borderline powerhouse with three cars in the stable, Hocevar says the rest of the Cup garage is taking note, and the gaps on track are only shrinking as Spire continues to climb the ladder.
“I feel like going into my rookie year, that [77] was 33rd in owners points when I got into it, right?,” Hocevar said. “So, I think from Spire Motorsports’ steps, I think every team that’s not the big three teams that are basically dominating, they’re all trying to emulate Spire’s progression. You saw 23XI [Racing], they’re super successful. Trackhouse Racing is super successful. But now, we’re on that. It’s a lot easier to say it and say you have a five-year plan, but it’s really hard to actually pull it off because when we get faster, the big teams see it, and they want to get faster. So it’s like, did you actually get faster or did everybody else just get faster with you? So if everybody else got faster, did you actually get faster?
“The field just keeps getting tighter. The floors are raising higher than the ceiling right now. We continue to keep adding people, parts and pieces and processes that I think it was known to all of us after the second year that it was expected to have won already, just because I think if we weren’t so fast, people would still think Spire is this little team. But there’s been a lot of times we’ve been in contention, and we’ve changed that narrative ourselves.”
A Cup Series win is on the horizon for Hocevar, and when that time comes, the comparisons to Earnhardt are only going to grow larger.
They may continue to balloon heading into Sunday’s race at COTA (3:30 p.m. ET, FOX, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) as Hocevar debuts a new Chili’s scheme that emulates the iconic black livery that first earned Earnhardt “The Intimidator” moniker.
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For now, Hocevar isn’t fully embracing a 2.0 version, but he won’t shy away from the influence and what his growing influence could be for future generations of drivers.
“I think we’ve been in position to win these races,” Hocevar said. “I don’t know if this week we’ll show that, but I think we have really good tracks coming up that we can do that. But for me, I’m just going in the merch hauler and signing [No.] 77 die casts. You know, that’s me. Maybe in 20-30 years, somebody’s hopefully making comparisons of myself to the next kid that was doing it and running good.
“So, yeah, I just think it was a compliment, but you know, I’m not hanging up No. 3 posters on my wall and trying to pretend to be anything I’m not.”