Carson Hocevar is now a Cup Series race winner, and with this, his desire to test different racing series and win races has increased. So much so that the young NASCAR driver now wants to venture elsewhere and try out the Indy 500.

Hocevar races for Spire Motorsports, a team owned by TWG Motorsports, which also owns Andretti Global in IndyCar. As a result, this week, he got good access to witness the nuances of Andretti's operations during the two-day Indy 500 test at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Tuesday-Wednesday.

Speaking about how he is also interested in trying out the race one day, Hocevar told Forbes, "The first thing I asked my boss when it got to May how soon I could get to Indy to watch practice. I’ve watched no monitors today; I’m just enjoying watching cars go by on the front straightaway. It’s totally different for me. They talk differently and say oversteer and understeer and paddock instead of garages."

Carson Hocevar hails from Michigan, a state where both IndyCar and NASCAR thrive. Considering that, it is understandable why the Spire Motorsports driver has always wanted to explore categories. Moreover, the Indy 500 is the biggest single-day sporting event in the world, and its lure crosses the boundaries of racing categories.

Speaking about his love for the 500, the 23-year-old added, "I’ve been cosplaying an Indy 500 driver every time we run the Brickyard 400 here. I can act the part a little bit more. I would absolutely love to run the Indianapolis 500 one day. I would really enjoy it. But first, I need to win a couple of Brickyard 400s here. If they offered me an Indy 500 ride, I wouldn’t say no."

Carson Hocevar also highlighted how he'd like to have just "1%" of the success that Andretti Global's Will Power has had at the IMS. Power's list of achievements at the IMS includes one Indy 500 win, five wins on the road course, and many more podiums.

Carson Hocevar's life-changing Cup Series win

At the Talladega Superspeedway race in April, Carson Hocevar became a first-time Cup Series race winner. He put his name in the elite list of Cup Series race winners, achieving the feat on his 91st race start.

"It’s changed a lot," Hocevar told Forbes about the impact of that moment on his life. "You look at things a lot differently. Rather than being announced at a local hockey game or baseball game, they announce you as a Cup Series winner, and not just a driver. It's a lot different, and that is what we shoot for."

Hocevar started the Jack's Link 500 from 12th place, but fell to 16th place at the end of Stage 1. He recovered to 12th place in Stage 2 and went on to win the race in the final stage by denying Chris Buescher by a 0.114-second margin.

Read more at the RFK Racing Digest!

Written by

Sabyasachi Biswas

Edited by

Yask Kotak