There’s a reason Carson Hocevar keeps coming up whenever NASCAR drivers start talking about ‘respect.’ The kid is fast; nobody argues that. But inside the garage, there’s also a shared feeling that he races every lap like somebody hit fast-forward on the final stage. And that’s basically where Ryan Blaney and Bubba Wallace landed during their podcast appearance.

The hosts had laid out a simple question: When a young driver gets to Cup, is there an unspoken rule about giving veterans a little room early in races? Wallace and Blaney explained it the way most drivers would.

“You’d never be like, ‘Oh yeah, go ahead,’” Ryan Blaney said on Bussin’ With The Boys. “But it’s just a little bit of a respect-level thing. He just doesn’t really care. It’s just how he approaches things.”

Wallace also joined in and said, “He’s kind of just a goober. He doesn’t interact with any of the drivers. Like, he’s just to himself. All he does is iRacing and goes racing on the weekends.”

If things were to be put into perspective, that’d be a great line to go by. The 23-year-old Spire Motorsports driver has built quite a reputation as the list of incidents keeps getting longer. There was Phoenix in 2023, when Hocevar wrecked Corey Heim during the Truck Series championship fight and basically detonated Heim’s title hopes. The backlash inside the garage was brutal.

Then Nashville happened in 2024.

Hocevar right-rear hooked Harrison Burton under caution, which is about the quickest way possible to make veterans furious. Blaney publicly blasted him afterward and even suggested NASCAR should park him if the behavior continued.

Atlanta didn’t help either next year, as Hocevar shoved Blaney aggressively down the straightaway with plenty of laps still left, nearly turning the field into scrap metal. Blaney was so angry, he tracked Hocevar down after the race and door-slammed him on the cooldown lap.

Add the Ricky Stenhouse friction into the mix; he got really mad at Hocevar in Mexico and almost lost his cool. And these are incidents that have gained the spotlight.

And yet, somehow, none of that really changed Hocevar. That’s part of why younger fans love him. He’s weird, unpredictable, and unapologetic. He grew up on iRacing, memes, Discord chats, and online racing. He doesn’t really go around the garage as drivers of his stature did 10 years ago.

That generational gap is becoming a real thing in NASCAR now. Blaney and Wallace were joking about feeling like “crusty old guys,” but there’s truth to it. Older drivers still believe relationships matter inside the garage, while Hocevar races like none of that matters at all.

That tension finally boiled over earlier this season at Martinsville.

The Martinsville incident ft. Bubba Wallace & Carson Hocevar

Wallace came into that race already irritated. His car had speed in practice, then completely fell apart during the race. Meanwhile, Hocevar was throwing his No. 77 Chevy into impossible holes like it was the final lap at Bristol.

On a restart, Hocevar made this hyper-aggressive three-wide dive into Turn 1. Denny Hamlin later called it “gutsy but irritating.” Wallace took it personally. A few laps later, he lined up directly behind Hocevar. Then he lost his temper.

Bubba Wallace drove straight through the back of Carson Hocevar, entering Turn 3, spinning him out and triggering a massive 12-car wreck. The 32-year-old destroyed his own race in the process and dropped hard in the standings afterward. The funny part? Even Wallace later admitted Hocevar really didn’t deserve it.

“He didn’t do anything wrong Sunday,” Bubba Wallace eventually said before Bristol. “So I apologized to him.”

That apology shows you something. Veterans are more riled up about teaching Hocevar how to actually race. Hocevar, on the other hand, is not receptive to it in a way of getting scared and backing down.

Right now, Hocevar still races like trust is optional. The problem, as it remains in NASCAR, is that it usually catches up with you sooner or later.