Carson Hocevar was parked for Sunday’s race at Homestead-Miami Speedway after Spire Motorsports suspended him over his driving at Martinsville, a punishment that also pulled him out of the No. 77 and forced Justin Haley into the car for the NASCAR Cup Series finale. NASCAR added a $100,000 fine and a 25-point deduction on top of the suspension.
The discipline followed what NASCAR viewed as repeated brake-checking of Austin Cindric at Martinsville, a move that turned a late-race clash into a sanction that reached beyond one race. For readers searching the Martinsville NASCAR penalty for Carson Hocevar now, the immediate answer is that the penalty changed Spire’s lineup on Sunday and gave the incident real competitive and financial weight.
Zane Smith, who has been in the middle of his own back-and-forth with Hocevar, said he was glad Hocevar got some karma. He also said the suspension was the first real consequence Hocevar had faced, a pointed line from a driver who had already called him a coward in July. Smith’s frustration was not abstract, either: NASCAR fined him $50,000 after he ran into the back of Hocevar’s car on the cooldown lap at Phoenix Raceway three weeks ago.
That penalty was tied to a warning NASCAR had already given Smith and Hocevar after their July fight at Chicagoland Speedway, when Smith appeared to wreck Hocevar on Lap 32 and crashed himself in the process. NASCAR then called both drivers to its hauler the following week at EchoPark Speedway, where the feud was treated as more than a one-off crash. Hocevar later said he was hoping Smith would not be penalized because that would have been soft of the sport, while Smith said, I just don’t like him as a human.
What happened next was simple enough on Sunday: Haley drove Spire’s No. 77 in Hocevar’s place, and the suspension kept Hocevar out of the race that mattered most on the schedule right now. The unanswered question is whether NASCAR considers Martinsville the end of the line or only the latest chapter in a feud it has already had to police twice.
