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Carson Hocevar is getting a ride with JR Motorsports. Dale Earnhardt Jr. announced Monday during a live Dale Jr. Download show in Key West that Hocevar will drive at least one NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race for JRM in 2027.
“We’re gonna get Hocevar to race one of our (JRM) cars next year,” Earnhardt said, to loud cheers from the crowd.
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The announcement comes a week after Spire Motorsports suspended Hocevar for the Cup Series finale at Homestead and NASCAR fined him $100,000 and docked him 25 points for brake-checking Austin Cindric at Martinsville.
Dale Jr.: ‘Our Sport Needs This’
Earnhardt has been one of Hocevar’s toughest critics, and one of his biggest supporters. In September, after Hocevar’s run-in with Brad Keselowski at Darlington, Earnhardt said the sport needed more drivers like him.
“But I mean, look, our sport needs this, whatever you want to call it. Drama, entertainment, controversy, whatever you want to call it. It needs it. And [Hocevar is] delivering it,” Earnhardt said then.
“I wish there were four or five more Hocevars in the field. Maybe if there were more of them, we wouldn’t be complaining as much.”
That came before Hocevar’s incident with Ryan Blaney at Bristol and the Cindric incident at Martinsville.
‘Don’t Do That in My Car’
Earnhardt also made clear back then that the race fan in him and the team owner in him see Hocevar differently.
“I like a lot of what I see,” he said. “I like that. We need the rivalries, the entertainment of it.
“If you pulled Hocevar out of the field entirely, man, I don’t know that I like it as much as him being involved in it. I don’t have anything that I would tell him to do differently.
“Other than I would love to know if he f*cked up or did he do that on purpose? And I don’t think he’s going to tell us that. I could probably call him and have that conversation with him privately.”
Asked whether he would feel the same if Hocevar were driving one of his cars, Earnhardt laughed, then admitted the owner side of him might not.
“If he was going to drive my car, I’d tell him, ‘You can’t do that sh* in my car.’ If he was going to drive my car, I’d tell him, ‘Dude, don’t run into nobody, I don’t need that sh*t. It’s not good for my company.’
“But, he’s not driving my car. Race fan me, is good with it.”
Now Hocevar will be driving one of his cars. Earnhardt did not say which race or races Hocevar will run.
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