Carson Hocevar assigns blame in Michael McDowell incident, shares plan for reconciliation

Carson Hocevar once again turned heads when he doored Spire Motorsports teammate Michael McDowell after crossing the start/finish line at Watkins Glen. It was in apparent retaliation for an earlier spin he took at the hands of McDowell.

Speaking with reporters on Wednesday, Hocevar didn’t seem in a hurry to patch things up. He noted McDowell wanted to catch up to iron things out, but the two have yet to speak.

“No, we haven’t talked or whatever,” Hocevar said in a video interview shared by Toby Christie. “He wanted to sit down at Richmond. I’m gone racing and he’s gone as well. So it’s just, sometimes, maybe it’s best case scenario that we’re both gone. But it didn’t seem like that big of a deal to me.”

Carson Hocevar got the worst of it from his teammate earlier in the race, when McDowell made contact and spun him out on lap 52. He was running in 17th place at the time.

“Either he made a mistake or misjudged and obviously turned me,” Hocevar said. “And then we were just fighting for the last lap and last corner and felt like that was plenty OK to do considering the contact, right? I can play defense for one corner to try to get the spot.”

The talented but enigmatic driver of the No. 77 rationalized his contact late by noting how important it was to the upcoming weekend’s action. Carson Hocevar explained.

“I think Richmond being the next week with qualifying draw being so important, that one spot I think matters a lot for qualifying, especially for how tough that place is to pass,” he said. “But also it’s super easy to go a lap down at that place, so qualifying means everything. And especially going out late you’re going to have a massive advantage. So the later we could have got, the better. So I’m glad we at least got a decent position.”

Could the two teammates patch things up before the race at Richmond? That remains to be seen.

But at least one party is trying to make it happen. It might be up to Carson Hocevar whether he gets that opportunity.

“Yeah, Michael wanted to sit down and talk about it a bit of just how we can move forward and just help each other next time to avoid that,” Hocevar said.