‘One of a kind’: Carson Hocevar launches first-win celebration to remember, and Talladega approves

By Zack Albert | NASCAR.com

📸 Ethan Smith | For NASCAR Digital Media

TALLADEGA, Ala. — Carson Hocevar had just finished the cool-down lap after a crowd-pleasing breakthrough NASCAR Cup Series win, easing off the throttle as the emotions washed over him. “The start/finish line’s all yours,” his jubilant Spire Motorsports No. 77 team told him over the radio, and the 23-year-old Michigander made the most of one of the longest homestretches the sport has.

There’s a distinctive list of the all-time memorable NASCAR victory celebrations, each deserving of its own place in stock-car lore. The Kyle Busch bow. Alan Kulwicki’s Polish victory lap. Carl Edwards’ backflip. What Hocevar had in store stoked the already rabid Talladega Superspeedway throng into a frenzy, reaching instant-classic status and making a strong case for inclusion on that famed list.

Turns out, being the tallest driver in the NASCAR garage has its advantages. After breezing past the main grandstand facing the fans, he decided to get a better look. Hocevar pulled to the apron and positioned his 6-foot-4 frame where he could sit on the edge of the driver door. From there, he was able to remove the steering wheel, drop the clutch, quickly reattach the wheel and reach the throttle, ultimately making a slow pass with his No. 77 Chevrolet along the main straight in full, helmet-off view of the Talladega faithful. The crowd pop was palpable, but here again, Hocevar’s execution — on a day when so many things went right — ended up nearly flawless, all by design.

“I just wanted them to get as loud as possible. I felt like they would if they could see me seeing them,” Hocevar said after making his 91st Cup Series start a triumphant one. “Yeah, I mean, ultimately, I just wanted to make sure I soaked every bit of it in. I think I could tell you what everybody was wearing, where every seat was, where every 77 shirt was. I think I could have pointed it all out to you because I remember it so clearly right now. That means more than anything else to me, just that I know this has been a blur. I could tell you exactly just off Turn 4, it was like, I have it, to right now, I could tell you every second.”

Hocevar relished every moment that followed at Talladega, blocking out both the beer spray and the waning daylight in Victory Lane with wraparound shades and a cowboy hat after a sterling Sunday drive in the Jack Link’s 500. Joining him were country music artist Zac Brown, Miss Alabama and a sponsor-provided Sasquatch, but with plenty of extra company to share in the spoils. Deep rows of fans flanked both sides of the winner’s circle, where virtually every Spire employee who made the trip south participated in the fanfare.

Hocevar had already made a name for himself as a disruptor who quickly and confidently forged his own path into the sport’s top ranks, earning his “Hurricane” nickname. Though some of his peers in the Cup Series field have kept him at arm’s length — especially those who have found the business end of his front bumper — his arrival as the circuit’s newest winner and a budding star earned Talladega’s full embrace.

“It’s pretty odd, right?” said Spire co-owner Jeff Dickerson. “To see some of the reactions inside the garage versus the whole grandstand going essentially ape-(expletive) up there, right? So it’s quite the juxtaposition, but that’s our guy, man. That’s our guy. We built the whole place around him now. We’re pot committed.”

The Midwestern kid’s journey to the center of the Talladega universe took him through a familiar career path — a late model prodigy who became a NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series upstart. The gobs of natural talent put him on the radar of several team owners, and Dickerson made a major push to snap Hocevar up as his organization grew into its next phase. When full-time driver Corey LaJoie jumped to make a spot start in Hendrick Motorsports’ No. 9 Chevrolet for a suspended Chase Elliott in 2023, Hocevar was promoted to make his Cup Series debut in Spire’s No. 7 Chevy at Worldwide Technology Raceway at Gateway. He won Rookie of the Year the next season under Spire’s watch.

To be sure, that talent needed some refinement, which would come with lessons learned the hard way and much-needed experience. Dickerson was willing to wait through both.

“The hardest part is finding guys that just stand on the gas and aren’t scared of the moment, and once you get to the Cup Series, you look beside you, those are all your heroes,” Dickerson said. “We’ve been saying to Carson all the time, it’s like, you’re in the video game now, right? So there is something about his je ne sais quoi that just lets him not really care what anybody else is saying or thinking and all that. Look, when he was running our [O’Reilly Auto Parts Series] car there and was running in the top five, we’re just like, ‘Who is this guy?’ We put him in the car at Gateway, as you guys remember, and it was right then and there, we’re just like, ‘we’ve got to get this kid in the car.’ I mean, we’ll put up with growing pains, we’ll put up with everything we can, and hopefully it’ll pay off. And I mean, sure as hell today it did.”