A Slippery Start at New Hampshire
The Dollar Tree 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway began under unusual circumstances. Officials moved the green flag up by an hour to beat incoming weather, but as the field rolled onto the wet track, Carson Hocevar's decision to test the limits quickly became the center of attention.
Joey Logano, who started from 21st, had the perfect view of Hocevar spinning and wasted little time then letting the No. 77 Chevrolet driver know exactly what he thought. "Look at this guy. Look at this idiot," the Team Penske driver said on the radio, as Hocevar lost control during the pace lap.
The track was extremely wet as the field made its way around on wet-weather tires. Drivers were essentially using the pace laps to gauge how much grip was available before NASCAR could give them the green flag. For Logano, the conditions were far from ideal. His Team Penske group had already made its feelings known before the spin, firmly landing on "Team thumbs down" when it came to whether the race should start. Hocevar, meanwhile, took the opposite approach, seemingly willing to find out just how slippery the track really was.
Hocegar passed the pace car while testing the track grip, then spun in Turn 4. NASCAR sent then field back to pit road and delayed the start again. Hocevar later attempted to explain his reasoning on social media. "I must rather test the track when no one's around vs green flag and ppl around. If no one else was gonna test it, I'll do it lol," he wrote on X. That post was later deleted. The spin highlighted the severity of the conditions, which were so slick that even on pace laps a car could lose grip.
The difficult surface produced more incidents once racing began. Tyler Reddick, who started from pole after a 29.054-second qualifying lap, spun exiting Turn 4 on the opening lap after the delay, bringing out the first caution and catching Denny Hamlin and Chris Buescher behind his Toyota. John Hunter Nemechek spun his No. 40 Legacy Motor Club Toyota and scraped the wall on Lap 22. Several drivers lippened to the surface that day.
Hocevar Faces Sharp Criticism
Logano's comment was not the only criticism aimed at Hocevar. Denny Hamlin, on his Actions Detrimental podcast, did not hold back about Hocevar's overall performance. "It just was not a very good CH [Carson Hocevar] day, that's for sure. Just not the best work. The best thing that's come out of that camp in a month has been his girl's tutorial on makeup and racing," Hamlin said.
Hamlin's jab referenced Hocevar's rumored girlfriend Tabitha Swatosh, a 25-year-old influencer and former beauty pageant winner who recently shared a TikTok video using her makeup routine to explain NASCAR rules. The comment highlighted Hocevar's recent struggles, which include him having shot from fifth in the standings after Indianapolis in July, 158 points above the cutline, to 11th in the standings heading in the final regular-season race, though he had clinched a playoff spot.
Kyle Larson went further on the Door Bumper Clear podcast, suggesting Hocevar's pre-race spin was deliberate. "I mean spinning out before the race, that was 1000% just to get on TV," Larson said. He also connected the New Hampshire incident to what he sees as a wider issue with Hocevar's approach: "I don't think you have to totally neuter him, but I almost feel like he's at the point now where he's like, doing it even like, it's not really him. It's a piece of him, but he's going above what he really is."
Broader Concerns and On-Track Chaos
Larson also revisited an incident at Iowa Speedway where Hocevar appeared to target Christopher Bell after being lapped. "I think he just blacks out. The camera didn't catch it at Iowa, I doubt, I don't know, but he was trying to spear [Christopher] Bell. Did you see any of that? When he got lapped for the second time he was trying to spear Christopher Bell for two laps. I don't understand. You admit that you wrecked yourself, but then you go out and run right through him the next chance you get," Larson said.
Hocevar's run at New Hampshire did not go smoother after the early spin. He finished Stage 1 in third position, but later he spun twice more during the race — once after contact with Connor Zilisch and once on his own — and ended up finishing 19th. He had entered the race during his third full-time Cup Series season with Spire Motorsports, hoping to bounce back from 31st and 37th finishes at Iowa and Richmond. Mechanical and engine-related problems had contributed to those poor results, but the incidents at New Hampshire put his on-track aggression under fresh scrutiny. After the race, Hocevar posted on social media about progress with his team as the playoffs approach.
Hocevar won his first Cup Series race in May at Talladega and sat fifth in the standings after Indianapolis in July. Since then, however, his results have gone sharply in the wrong direction, and the criticism from Logano, Hamlin, and Larson has added more attention as he heads toward the final regular-season race.