NASCAR insiders assign blame in Carson Hocevar, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. ‘Chastain disease’ incident

The drama between Carson Hocevar and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. has NASCAR insiders Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi dissecting the entire situation. The duo likened it to Ross Chastain’s advent in the Cup Series.

Hocevar and Chastain share a lot of similarities, with their ultra-aggressive driving-style. Gluck elaborated on how that’s led to the Spire Motorsports wheelman not receiving the benefit of the doubt, no matter the situation.

“It all plays into the reputation that [Hocevar] has. But I also think there is a little bit of the, what I termed on Twitter, ‘The Chastain Disease,’ where Hocevar is clearly not going to get the benefit of the doubt. Everybody knows he races aggressively. Everybody knows he takes what he can get. So, it pi--es everybody off, but nobody’s done anything about it yet,” Gluck stated, via The Teardown.

“… I don’t think that Stenhouse is going to take this lightly. however, he’s sort of like — get in line with Hocevar. Get in line with the long list of people. … [Hocevar] seems to find himself in hot water, but he’s not going to change the way he races.”

In response, Bianchi was in agreement, wondering if Hocevar needs to learn to pick his spots a little better on the track. That could be what leads to him receiving the respect he desires.

“You’re right when you say Hocevar is not going to get the benefit of the doubt, but that’s the world you created, and you’ve got to be able to manage it,” Bianchi responded. “It’s also — this is part of it, a young driver who’s only in the second full season, learning the rigors of racing at the Cup level. Like Chastain and like other young drivers we’ve seen, it’s about picking and choosing your spots.

“I go back to when Chastain was making a lot of his mistakes, and they were at the end of races or towards the end of races, racing for the win. Then it was like, it’s a little bit more excusable. Like, I’m all for aggressive driving, but the Chastain thing is like, I get it. You’re racing for the win, you’re aggressive. I get it. This big picture, you didn’t need to do that in that situation.

“If you’re faster than him, if you’re closing that quickly, you’re going to get them anyway. You obviously have a good race car. You don’t need to do anything out of the ordinary here. Just keep doing your thing. Looking at the tape, it looks like he kind of hit him flush. It wasn’t like he got underneath them and then they made contact, it was almost a flush hit. So if I’m Stenhouse, I’d be pi--ed too.”

The field certainly believes Carson Hocevar will get some comeuppance soon. Whether it’s Ricky Stenhouse Jr. or another driver remains to be seen, but the Spire Motorsports wheelman might need to show a bit more contrition if he’s going to avoid an altercation moving forward.