Bristol Motor Speedway (Bristol, Tenn.) – of Hurricane apparently he also knows how to throw a punch.
Carson Hocevar belted Ryan Blaney when Blaney caught him after the race Saturday night in Bristol, with Hocevar hitting Blaney with two punches.
“I looked at him and I said, ‘OK, he’s moving too fast for a conversation and then he caught me,'” Hocevar told me and other reporters after the race.
“And I was like, I’m not going to wait. I’ve seen enough of this. I’m just going to start swinging and see what happens.”
Carson Hocevar (L) and Ryan Blaney argued after the NASCAR Cup Series Bass Pro Shops night race at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Blaney was not punched. He fell to the ground and was surrounded by Hocevar’s crew after Hocevar’s third-place finish.
“That’s the first time I’ve hit anybody, so it’s a cool story. At least that’ll be a Bristol (moment), of all places,” Hocevar said. “I don’t know if he tripped over somebody or got a good one in. I don’t know what a good one feels like.”
The Team Penske driver felt Hocevar destroyed him on lap 458 as they battled for second.
Blaney passed Hocevar and slid in front of Hocevar up against the wall, and Hocevar jumped to get under him. Blaney kept trying to get off Hocevar’s line, and Hocevar put it back.
Blaney finished 33rd.
“Something’s going to happen,” Blaney told me and other reporters outside the medical center on the field and before facing Hocevar.
Hocevar knew why Blaney was mad.
“I understand why he is upset,” said Hocevar. “This is probably his championship, so I understand 100 percent. I’d probably be mad, too. Whether it was his mistake, my mistake, my fault or not — I’d be pretty pissed off if I was him.”
Blaney said he hasn’t had a problem with Hocevar — who has had several collisions with drivers — for more than a year, but that he’s “getting old.”
“I just felt like he didn’t lift,” Blaney said. “I left him plenty of room for a lap before that. I didn’t cut him. I didn’t put him in the fence or anything like I could have easily.
“I protected the bottom, and he just decided he wanted to be there and didn’t pick me up and destroy me.”
Hocevari said that he did not feel that he had done anything scandalous.
“I kind of passed him there and I felt like I was at least on his left rear and it looked like he just kept going down,” Hocevar said. “I was on the brakes too hard, and he obviously spun, and that resulted in that. I was just trying to stop my bleeding.”
NASCAR, as it usually does, will review the fight and determine if any penalties are warranted.
Typically, these decisions come on Tuesdays. NASCAR usually allows drivers to wrestle, but doesn’t want crew members involved.
Spire Motorsports team owner Jeff Dickerson said he didn’t think the league would penalize Hocevar. He pointed to fans lining the fence to cheer for Hocevar and hoping he would acknowledge them afterwards.
“We’re just surprised he can fight,” Dickerson told me of his driver. “What will he be punished for? I think drivers can fight.”
Dickerson and Blaney know each other well.
“I was kind of surprised. It’s Bristol, tough race,” Dickerson said. “I don’t want to see Blaney mad. I love him. … That’s a little out of character for Ryan. I don’t know what to say.
“It’s a shame he walled up there and Carson caught him well with about two or three straight rights.”
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