Richard Petty: Carson Hocevar "Reminds Me of Dale Earnhardt"

At 23 years old, Carson Hocevar, in just his third year of full-time competition in the NASCAR Cup Series, is NASCAR’s most polarizing driver. You’d never know that, solely based on his off-track demeanor and personality (which some could describe as goofy), but when he hits the racetrack, a switch flips.

There isn’t a single person in the NASCAR Cup Series garage that can deny that Carson Hocevar is a talented racecar driver and a quick study, but give them free reign, and the pushback will likely come in the form of some other, un-publishable adjectives.

Hocevar unequivocally has the support of Spire Motorsports and team owner Jeff Dickerson, too, as evidenced by a long-term contract extension signed by the two parties before the start of the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series campaign.

And, it’s looking like it could be a breakout season for Hocevar, just based on the opening three weeks of the season; where he was extremely fast in the Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium, crashed from the lead on the final lap in the DAYTONA 500, and was in contention to win Sunday’s AutoTrader 400 at EchoPark Speedway.

Why didn’t he win those races, though? Sure, some of it was circumstantial, no doubt, but there is an aspect of aggressiveness that ultimately cost him the opportunity to collect his first victory in the NASCAR Cup Series.

Take Sunday at EchoPark Speedway for example…

In NASCAR Overtime, Hocevar was lined up fourth, second in the outside lane, behind Christopher Bell with several Chevrolet teammates (Ross Chastain, Daniel Suarez, and Shane Van Gisbergen) behind him. When the green dropped and the field drove towards Turn 1, there was a split-second where there was a car-width gap that opened.

Hocevar took the opportunity, darted to the middle, the gap closed, and suddenly the race was back under caution with Christopher Bell in the outside SAFER Barrier. Hocevar sustained minor damage, but not enough to ruin his race, coming home in fourth place.

Interestingly, Hocevar’s move on Sunday was almost identical to one that was pulled by Brad Keselowski at Texas Motor Speedway in 2024, when during NASCAR Overtime, the then driver of the No. 2 shot a three-wide gap to try and get the lead on a restart and door-slammed Jeff Gordon, cutting down his tire and ending his chance at advancing to the Championship 4.

Of course, that moment was made even more infamous with the brawl that occurred on pit road afterwards, but, as far as we know, there were no brawls post-race at EchoPark Speedway on Sunday.

In the wake of Sunday’s incident (and, in theory, all of the other incidents over his time in the NASCAR Cup Series) Hocevar has drawn an interesting comparison from Richard Petty, AKA “The King”, who is one of three drivers in NASCAR Cup Series history to win seven championships, and the winningest driver in the history of NASCAR’s top-level.

A native of Randleman, North Carolina, Petty competed in the NASCAR Cup Series from 1958 to 1992, retiring at the end of the 1992 season as Jeff Gordon, a future four-time champion of the series, made his series debut in the not-yet iconic No. 24 for Hendrick Motorsports. Throughout his career, Petty had the opportunity to compete against a lot of the greats, like David Pearson, Cale Yarborough, Darrell Waltrip, Bobby Allison, and Dale Earnhardt, who Petty says he sees a lot of Hocevar in.

“That boy in the No. 77 [Carson Hocevar], he has him a time. Right now, a lot of the things he’s getting by with, or doing, is not really that wrong,” Petty said on his podcast this week. “If I go back and watch him run and stuff, he reminds me of Dale Earnhardt. Earnhardt learned to get by with that stuff, and that boy in the No. 77, he’s just going to have to learn to get by with the things he’s doing.”

Earnhardt, another seven-time champion like Petty himself, was known as “The Intimidator” throughout much of his career for his rough-and-tumble driving style that often-rubbed people the wrong way, as well as his unapologetic nature. That allowed him, the driver of the iconic black No. 3 for Richard Childress Racing, to win 76 total races and become one of the sport’s most recognizable figures, even a quarter-century after his passing.

Now, we’re not quite at the Dale Earnhardt levels of polarizing just yet, but Carson Hocevar, with a similar driving style, and even at times, a similar rough-and-tumble attitude, could be heading towards a level of superstardom that could expand beyond NASCAR’s current popularity.

…and if you think Hocevar and Spire Motorsports aren’t aware of that connection (or haven’t made it themselves), just look at the No. 77 Chili’s Chevrolet for this weekend at Circuit of The Americas (COTA), which people on r/NASCAR have started to call The “Intimi’dente”).

This article was originally published on www.si.com/onsi/racing-america as Richard Petty: Carson Hocevar “Reminds Me of Dale Earnhardt”.

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