Inside The Garage: Carson Hocevar Is Not The Only One Fighting At Spire

Bristol Motor Speedway (Bristol, Tenn.) — Carson Hocevar’s reaction to Ryan Blaney confronting him following the Cup race Saturday night appeared both natural and symbolic for Spire Motorsports. Hocevar didn’t let Blaney get the first punch. Instead, once Blaney grabbed him, Hocevar started swinging. Spire Motorsports has had to do a lot of that lately, trying to fight back against perceptions and allegations. The organization started in the 2019 season after the company — then a driver management and sponsor broker firm — bought the Furniture Row Racing charter. Its first years were lean, as they had to pay off the loan they got for the charter. They steadily built and got an influx of cash after TWG Global purchased a majority stake in the organization but with Jeff Dickerson remaining as the operator of the team. It has increased to a three-charter organization. It has put two drivers (Hocevar and Daniel Suárez) in The Chase for the first time this year but not without controversy. It hired Chris Gabehart away from Joe Gibbs Racing (where he was competition director), and all sides are embroiled in a bitter lawsuit with JGR, alleging Gabehart has given trade secrets to Spire and is violating his non-compete clause. On Wednesday before Bristol, JGR filled several exhibits to support motions where it asked the court to hold Spire and Gabehart in contempt for violating the non-compete clause. JGR had obtained a restraining order keeping Gabehart from performing similar duties at Spire that he had at JGR. Spire has indicated that Gabehart’s role is more motorsports-driven than Cup-focused, as Spire has teams in trucks and late-model dirt racing, as well as Cup. JGR counters that Gabehart took photos of several JGR documents when he knew he was leaving for Spire. Gabehart no longer has the images — photos that he claims he created while in his JGR role. “The evidence establishes … he was using JGR trade secrets to analyze the performance of Spire’s cars at Cup Series races and providing input on a Spire car’s setup, disclosing JGR trade secrets in the process,” JGR’s filing states. A couple of days after the filing, Dickerson put out a statement refuting the allegations. “JGR once said that this case was about its ‘crown jewels,’” the statement said. “Now, JGR is talking about stray comments at a few meetings and a debrief form. “JGR does not get to control what other race teams do through court cases. JGR does not own tire pressures, JGR does not own race strategy, JGR does not own the people who work in this industry, and JGR does not own Spire. … Months of discovery have shown that Spire Motorsports has done nothing wrong.” Hocevar, who is not shy in professing his bond with Dickerson that allows him to be his free-spirited self, doubled down on the lawsuit drama. He introduced himself to the crowd at Bristol as a Joe Gibbs Racing driver. Dickerson told me he didn’t know Hocevar was going to do it. “I did not know [about it],” Dickerson said. “I thought that was an incredible troll. He did that on his own.” If Hocevar is good at something beyond going fast in a race car, it’s trolling. He ran a 12-hour promotion of 12 percent off his merchandise following the fight with Blaney, whose number is 12. When asked if his hand hurt after the punches, Hocevar didn’t skip a beat. “I don’t know if my hand’s supposed to hurt or not, but [competition director] Matt McCall — we fist bump each other pretty hard and prep,” Hocevar said to me and other reporters Saturday night. “So I must have my knuckles worn.” His unapologetic nature — which is reminiscent of Dickerson — certainly has not helped him get along better with competitors. But it seems that the fans find it endearing. “We get the full story, and we get to be in the highlight reel, I guess,” Hocevar said. “That’s, of course, everything I want to be a part of.” In some ways, be careful what you wish for. But so far it’s working for Spire. And so far, Spire is backing Hocevar, who has a deal for several years to remain at the organization and whose wreck with Blaney could easily be viewed as a racing incident if looked at in a silo and not amid a few years of Hocevar having more than his fair share of dust ups. “I don’t want to tell people the stop sign is blue, right?” Dickerson said. “That one [with Blaney], I didn’t know we were going to have to defend anything. … It’s just Bristol.” Brake Issues The fallout of five drivers having brake failures at World Wide Technology Raceway (Gateway) a week ago had drivers and teams talking with NASCAR. Gateway has been notorious for brake issues because the heat cycles put on them during the event. The lack of sustained green-flag runs also likely contributed to the problem because that even increased the temperature range of the brakes throughout the event. The question for NASCAR and the teams is whether, with the increased horsepower and now 50 minutes of practice, the teams are doing more wear and tear on the brake rotors and pads than they are designed to handle. Chase Elliott said teams noticed a higher wear on the pads after that practice. Teams are not allowed to change brake pads once practice begins and until the race begins (theoretically, they could replace them during a race, costing themselves laps) and can only change brake rotors if they can show a problem. Elliott told me Friday that he has concerns about the upcoming races at Phoenix and Martinsville. “When we go to these tracks and we don’t have 25-minute practices at a high brake pressure track, I do think that some of those things probably need to be thought about a little bit and addressed,” Elliott said. “Or we’re just going to limit how much we run. However, we need to go about that to better our chances of not having a problem.” Ryan Blaney, who had a brake issue, indicated it isn’t a new problem as far as race teams grappling with the best set up to go fast but not break equipment. Brakes and tires are among the areas where teams have single-source suppliers but how they use them (brake cooling, tire cambers) can impact the performance and reliability. “We operate on the edge all the time, and we were just on the other side of that edge,” Ryan Blaney told me and other reporters on Friday. “It’s just one of those things that happens when you’re trying to get everything you can. “So that’s motorsports.” In The News — Legacy Motor Club named engineer Chais Eliason as crew chief for its No. 42 Cup car driven by John Hunter Nemechek. Eliason will remain as crew chief for next season when Josh Berry takes over that ride. Former crew chief Travis Mack is no longer with the team. — NASCAR has adjusted its rules for racing in damp conditions on ovals. All cars must start the race on the tires designated by NASCAR and once they take the green (assuming the conditions are damp), teams can change tires when they want. The previous rule had NASCAR dictating which tires they must be on for an oval. If it rains during a race, NASCAR would throw the yellow flag so teams would have the option to put on rain tires. NASCAR, if pit road is damp, could go to non-competitive pit stops under caution in these situations. — FedEx Freight will replace Craftsman as the entitlement sponsor for NASCAR’s truck series beginning next year. The company will also be NASCAR’s official freight partner. NASCAR has not had an official shipping partner since UPS left the sport in 2014 and that category remains open. — NASCAR announced that its postseason awards will be Nov. 10, two days after the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. It will be held at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts. Stock Rising Spire Motorsports development driver Tristan McKee won the ARCA East Series title at Bristol and then became the youngest driver (16 years, 1 month, 14 days) ever to earn a top five in a NASCAR national series with a fifth-place finish in the truck race. Social Spotlight They Said It “I’ve seen enough of these. I’m just going to start swinging and see what happens.”— Carson Hocevar on his fight with Ryan Blaney