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Spire Motorsports co-owner Jeff Dickerson says suspending Carson Hocevar for the NASCAR Cup Series finale was the hardest call he has made as a team owner, but one he believes will make Hocevar better.
Spire benched Hocevar for the championship race at Homestead after he repeatedly brake-checked Austin Cindric at Martinsville. NASCAR also fined him $100,000 and docked him 25 points. Speaking with SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, Dickerson said he hopes Hocevar now knows where the line is.
‘Badasses Don’t Back Into People’
“Well, yeah, I mean for a race car driver, I don’t think there’s any worse punishment than having to sit there and watch your car go around in circles,” Dickerson said. “But I think, look, I think for him the lesson’s going to be– I think he now understands where the line’s at.
“There’s things that we expect and expect him to follow. I think you guys saw, there’s one thing to go into the corner and clean everybody up with your front bumper, right? And sometimes that’s just racing.
“That’s not what we saw at Martinsville. We don’t want to race like that. Badasses don’t back into people, right?”
‘Take the Car Keys Away’
Dickerson compared the suspension to parenting.
“And so, I think what he’s just going to learn is like taking the car keys away from your kid, right? They miss curfew,” he said.
“You’re just like, hey, at some point you just got to take the car keys away. Toughest decision I’ve probably had to make as a team owner. It affects everybody on this team, and yeah, I don’t like it, but I think for Carson and where we’re trying to go, it’ll only make him better.
“And, yeah, it sucks in the moment for him. It sucks in the moment for me, and that’s how it goes.”
Hocevar: ‘I’m the Bad Guy’
Hocevar has said Spire made the right call. In an apology video last week, he asked fans not to blame the team.
“My boss sort of came to me and was just like– they weren’t getting pressure from NASCAR to make a decision. They weren’t doing anything,” Hocevar said. “But they have to basically be able to sleep at night. You know, they have to draw a line in the sand of, hey, we’re cool with racing. We’re cool with the way I race, but they’re not cool with what I did.
“I think they’re making the right decision. So to my fans or anybody out there, if you’re saying that I should leave Spire or Spire’s the bad guy in this situation, I’m the bad guy.”
Hocevar finished 14th in the final standings. In 2027, he will also drive at least one O’Reilly Series race for JR Motorsports.
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