Early this month at Darlington, Carson Hocevar spun Brad Keselowski, charged from 34th to 11th, and then did something only he would do. Keselowski had warned that Hocevar’s day was coming “and it’s coming hard.” Hocevar answered that he’d tighten his belts, then put his merchandise on sale at 29 percent off, one percent for every position he gained plus an extra six percent to match Keselowski’s car number. Now picture the man on the other side of this story: a three-time champion who has spent eleven years replaying one Kansas finish from 2015. That man is Joey Logano, and he has some thoughts.
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Motorsports Today asked Logano about Carson Hocevar. Joey assigned the track’s anti-hero, an interesting label.
“He’s a walking highlight reel,” Joey Logano said, pointing out that something always happens when Hocevar is on track, good or bad.
He admitted that’s great for the sport, for Hocevar and for his team. Then came the critique, “Are we trying to accomplish highlights or are we trying to win championships?”
To understand the context of all this, start with Bristol. On September 19, Joey Logano won the Bass Pro Shops Night Race for his 40th career Cup win, and almost nobody wanted to talk about it. Ty Gibbs had led 120 laps, and he and Hocevar swapped the lead four times in the final 100.
Then, on Lap 494 of 500, Logano slipped through the bottom of that scrum and led the last seven laps. Hocevar led 39 laps himself and finished third, his best Bristol result, but he still wasn’t the headline.
That honor went to what happened behind them. On Lap 458, contact from Hocevar sent Ryan Blaney, who had led 202 laps, into the outside wall. Blaney, Joey Logano’s Team Penske teammate, finished 33rd, and on pit road the two drivers traded punches.
NASCAR announced no penalties for either one. Blaney later said his reaction had been building for about a month, so this wasn’t one bad restart.
Kansas gave that question fresh teeth. On September 27, Hocevar’s contact with Gibbs on a Lap 123 restart triggered a multicar crash that also caught Bubba Wallace, Josh Berry, Erik Jones and Zane Smith.
Keselowski was lined up right behind Hocevar, and the two gave different accounts of how it started. Hocevar finished 33rd, three laps down, and fell to 11th in the Chase standings, 120 points behind Kyle Larson.
The numbers on Hocevar are good, which is what makes this interesting. He won at Talladega in April in his 91st Cup start, and this year he has six top-fives, 11 top-10s and two poles. But his average start is 12.52, and his average finish is 15.76, so he hands back roughly three spots a race.
He has admitted he sometimes goes for two positions when taking one is the smarter trade. Racing Insights has him in a driver run-in at 16 of 63 Cup weekends since 2025 began, about one in every four. Logano is on that list too.
So he isn’t preaching from a pedestal. At Kansas in October 2015, Joey Logano spun Matt Kenseth with four laps left and won. Two weeks later at Martinsville, Kenseth deliberately turned him out of the lead while running laps down.
NASCAR suspended Kenseth for two races, but Logano’s title run ended there anyway. Kevin Harvick later argued the Kansas move cost Logano the championship, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. said Logano’s comments after that race made it worse.
“I could be sitting here with four championships right now looking to get a fifth,” Joey Logano said.
He has three, from 2018, 2022 and 2024. Here’s the twist, though. Logano isn’t telling Hocevar to change. “Be you,” he said. “Don’t be fake.”
Some sponsors want the edgy driver, he explained, while Fortune 500 companies want someone who understands their business, and there’s room for both. The business side backs him up. Lionel Racing said Hocevar’s post-Talladega diecast sales were the highest for a race winner since their joint venture began in 2010.
His personal store did nearly $500,000 in its first month, TIME put him on its 100 Most Influential People in Sports list in June, and Spire Motorsports signed him into the next decade in February.
What Joey Logano is really pointing at is that gap at Bristol. While Hocevar and Gibbs fought for the lead, Logano took the trophy. Hocevar once said he just wants to be the driver he would have wanted to be a fan of.
Fair enough, but fans don’t hand out trophies. So here’s the question that follows him to Las Vegas: if you’re the driver everyone watches and rarely the one who wins, how long can the highlights keep paying the bills?