NASCAR officials are set for a busy weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway, with multiple Cup Series drivers scheduled for meetings. This comes after a string of on-track incidents that have sparked controversy but stopped short of drawing formal penalties.

Speaking on the Hauler Talk podcast, NASCAR’s VP of Racing Communications, Mike Forde, spoke about the incident between Carson Hocevar and Zane Smith, who made contact in Chicagoland. When asked if there were plans to take any action, Forde said NASCAR reached the same conclusion as it did with Shane Van Gisbergen’s incident at the same venue. 

“Copy and paste what I said with the SVG stuff. No, nothing coming out of that. Same thing. Same review went into it. And nothing rose to the level of a penalty, no doubt about it. It was intentional. So we are opting to not penalize there. But we'll be having a conversation in the Hauler between those two drivers.

So Zane and Carson will be in the Hauler this weekend as well. So it'll be busy. And there'll be several Hauler talks this weekend. Good thing you're going to Atlanta. Yeah. Sounds like you're going to have your hands full. Who's a? That's before the race even starts.”

During the podcast, the hosts joked about the logistics of organizing meetings for Hocevar, Smith, van Gisbergen and Hill, even wondering who would receive the first ‘Outlook invite.’ Forde declined to reveal the schedule, noting he did not want to create a media "stakeout" outside the hauler. 

He also acknowledged that Austin Hill is doing double duty this weekend, meaning NASCAR would need to work around that competitor's schedule.

The Hocevar-Smith beef in short

Zane Smith and Carson Hocevar were once teammates in Spire before Smith moved to Front Row. The two have a tense history that dates back to last year at Iowa Speedway, when Hocevar made contact, which resulted in Smith going into the wall.  

This resulted in Smith clapping back a week later, saying, “I think that the media feeds into him trying to play this like ‘Intimidator’ role, but then he’ll act like he’s your buddy, and then just be an idiot on social media. I was teammates with him, and everyone at that race shop, everyone in this garage, realizes he’s an idiot.”

However, this weekend, it was Smith who slammed into Hocevar from behind, resulting in Hocevar hitting the wall, and ultimately, Smith also lost control of his car. Both celebrated 100 career starts at Chicagoland, but it did not end well.

After the incident, Smith had similar thoughts as he did last year, but with more expletives. Meanwhile, Hocevar also addressed the recent incident during a Twitch livestream, and he went on to say, “What’s Zane’s problem? I don’t know, man; maybe his T-shirt sales were low. I don’t know. Who cares?”

Read more at RFK Racing Digest! 

Written by

Aaradhya Singh

Edited by

Suyashdeep Sason