Following the race at Michigan, Carson Hocevar has been criticized by a large portion of the NASCAR garage for his driving style. Amidst the backlash, Denny Hamlin found himself giving the Spire Motorsports driver advice for the future.

During the FireKeepers 400 at Michigan International Speedway, on Lap 83, Hocevar started a nine-car pile-up. The incident took place as he tried to move left on John Hunter Nemechek but misjudged the move, causing a chain reaction. This took drivers like Tyler Reddick and Austin Dillon, while a few drivers like Hamlin suffered minor damage.  

While discussing the incident on his "Actions Detrimental" podcast, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver highlighted how the No. 77 driver is hurting himself.

"Listen, it's not up to me to be his dad, but like he's just hurting himself, truthfully," he said.

Hamlin also explained that when the time comes for Hocevar to win a race, he might be raced extra hard by his rivals as payback.

"I think I'm fine with him. You know,  Dale Junior says, 'Don't change. For TV people, we love it. We need chaos like this.' I agree. TV would love it. The competitors, you know, yeah, it's very, very agitating. And again, you just never know when you think you got that opportunity to win, and it goes away because you get raced a little hard and stuff like that if you're him," Hamlin added.

To back what Hamlin mentioned, some of the drivers have publicly voiced out how Hocevar is running out of allies. One of them was Austin Dillon, who DNF’d due to the incident in Michigan. 

"I hope at some point he figures it out. But I’m not going to show anything to him for a long time," Dillon said via the Prime broadcast.

The other prominent members who reacted sourly to the wreck Carson Hocevar caused moments after it were Denny Hamlin, Bubba Wallace, Austin Dillon and his spotter, and RCR owner Richard Childress. All of them were irate and didn't hesitate to call the Spire driver out.

As of now, the biggest challenge for Hocevar is to keep his aggression on track in check to avoid straining his relationship with others in the NASCAR garage, as Denny Hamlin pointed out. 

Besides the Hocevar incident taking the center stage during the race, it was Hamlin who stole the thunder at the end of the event. 

Denny Hamlin Equals Kyle Busch’s Record for All-Time Wins

Denny Hamlin not only got his second consecutive victory of the season, but he also equaled his former teammate and late Kyle Busch’s record for ninth in all-time wins in the NASCAR Cup Series.

Denny Hamlin took his 63rd career win at the FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan. However, the win was far from easy. The team made some adjustments to the car pre-race. This was deemed illegal by the sanctioning body, resulting in a penalty. 

After the penalty, he was sent to the back of the grid from pole position, but he managed to capitalize on the multiple race restarts. 

Denny Hamlin won the race by 11.110 seconds over Erick Jones in second and cut the point deficit to Tyler Reddick to 51 points in the driver's championship. 

Follow the RFK Racing Digest for more updates!

Written by

Chionia Libania Colaco

Edited by

Yash Kotak