Carson Hocevar isn’t your typical NASCAR driver. He’s not your daddy’s driver.
He’s certainly not your granddaddy’s driver.
He’s no Dale Earnhardt. He’s not Richard Petty or Cale Yarborough or, for those looking for a more recent driver, Tony Stewart.
In a way, he’s probably the closest thing to Jeff Gordon we’ve had since … Jeff Gordon.
Hocevar, 23, is rewriting the rules in just about every single way. He’s only got one career Cup win — earlier this year at Talladega (hey, maybe he is Dale!) — but is currently leading the series in merchandise sales.
Last year, he wasn’t even in the Top 30.
When I told my wife I was interviewing Carson Hocevar earlier this week, I expected her to look at me like I had three heads.
“Oh, I know him,” she said. “From TikTok.”
“I just kind of laugh about it,” Hocevar said about all the attention — both good and bad — he’s getting from a suddenly vibrant social media presence.
“You know, the night before Talladega, I was six hours away at my buddy’s place driving $500 cars, and then we win the next day. So, you know, it’s always … you just put yourself in that spot sometimes that I think in racing, when people just want to have a reason for stuff, they don’t want to just be like, ‘Oh, circumstance, you know?’
“They just want to dictate a reason or, you know, push a story or whatever.”
Hocevar’s popularity, both within the sport and outside of it, has exploded this summer. In July, social media sleuths started linking him to popular influencer, Tabitha Swatosh.
Swatosh has over 15 million followers on TikTok, and unleashed a video last month that tallied nearly 500,000 likes.
“A NASCAR man invited me to be his date to an event,” she said in the video before showing all 15 million followers how she gets ready for said event.
Side note: No, I don’t get it. Don’t ask me why people watch what they watch on TikTok. I have no clue. I’m not the target audience, though.
Anyway, fast-forward a few weeks, and the two were spotting together on the starting grid before the Brickyard 400.
Pretty easy to connect the dots after this:
Which brings us to August, where Carson finished 31st, 37th, 19th and, after a late crash last Saturday at Daytona, 38th.
Not great!
Add in some off-the-track drama around Swatosh after she “wore heels to a race,” which apparently didn’t sit well with some fans, and it’s been a rocky summer for Hocevar.
Too much TikTok girlfriend and not enough practice in the simulator? Well, if you ask championship favorite Denny Hamlin …
“I don’t know. It just was not a very good day,” Hamlin said about Hocevar on his ‘Actions Detrimental’ podcast following a wreck at New Hampshire.
“The best thing that’s come out of that camp in a month is his girl’s tutorial on makeup and racing.”
Whoooooooof.
Hamlin wasn’t alone.
“Here’s how it goes a lot of times when you see a young driver that gets a lot of attention, had some success, wins a race,” former Cup champion Kevin Harvick said last week. “Got a TikTok girlfriend. All these things that go along with all that, and then they forget that they need to drive the freaking race car.
“The guy can drive the crap out of the race car, and all the other stuff is really cool … No one cares if your car is not fast. It does not matter if you don’t have the results.
“They will forget about you in weeks.”
There’s certainly some truth to that. Fans want to root for a winner. Hocevar told me as much when I spoke to him earlier this week.
But if you win, and nobody knows anything else about you, that probably won’t last, either.
“A lot of my friends love the WWE and they they were reading the WWE Reddit, and they’re in some of the comments and they thought they accidentally switched to the NASCAR Reddit by accident because the fans over there kind of say the same stuff they do over here,” Hocevar said.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE OUTKICK SPORTS COVERAGE
“They don’t understand the new guys. ‘This guy is popular, and I don’t understand why.’ A lot of my friends, some of them love WWE and all the intricacies of that world. But the casuals of it, they’re like, ‘Man, I loved Stone Cold when he walked out. I never even watched him wrestle, but I liked him, and the Undertaker and their shticks.
“It’s very similar to how NASCAR fans describe everything and become negative to everything. A lot of times, they’re not sure what they’re looking for.”
NASCAR, by the way, is sure what it’s looking for.
The series has been pushing Hocevar over the past few weeks in a way we haven’t seen … maybe ever?
Last Thursday, the series sent out a press release titled, “Does Everyone Hate Carson Hocevar?” It was odd. You don’t see that in this business.
The story made sure to note that Hocevar is currently No. 1 driver in retail sales on the NASCAR Shop website, and ranked inside the top five of trackside sales.
He was No. 32 this time last season.
“Love him or hate him, Carson Hocevar is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore … so catch him and all his enemies this Saturday night, Aug. 29, during the Coke Zero Sugar 400,” the article concluded.
So, yeah — NASCAR isn’t oblivious to this. They’re very clearly pushing Carson Hocevar to the center of the table, and letting the chips fall where they may.
There’s a reason I spoke to Carson earlier this week. I didn’t ask. He was offered. That also doesn’t happen often.
It’s not the worst strategy in the world. Every sport needs a villain. A lightning rod. Someone who’s going to move the needle.
NASCAR, in particular, has been desperate for that driver for a decade now. Jeff Gordon retired in 2015. Tony Stewart retired in 2016. Dale Earnhardt Jr. retired in 2017.
Kyle Busch, sadly, died in May. He was undoubtedly the most polarizing driver in the sport for years. His death rocked the series in more ways than one.
So now, apparently, it’s Carson Hocevar’s turn.
He’s got the TikTok girlfriend, as Kevin Harvick said. The social media presence. Plenty of enemies on the track. He’s also got a shot at winning a Cup championship in a few months.
The only thing left to do?
Win.
“I’ve had people try to wreck me and they just end up wrecking themselves lately,” Hocevar said with a smile, referring to Zane Smith’s move at Chicagoland in July. “I think we’ll just enjoy these (next) ten (races) and keep working and, you know, just see where it works out.”
