NASCAR Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney said in an appearance on Denny Hamlin’s ‘Actions Detrimental’ podcast Monday that he regrets everything that unfolded with Carson Hocevar following the checkered flag in Saturday’s Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol.
And that’s not because Blaney “got [his] ass kicked,” but moreso because the post-race chaos that ensued on pit road doesn’t match his moral compass, and the example that he tries to set for the people who look up to him as a professional athlete.
“There are things I regret – I try to set a good example for kids that are watching who are fans, parents who are allowing kids to watch these races and root for their driver, and I try to act a certain way to what a kid would want to look up to, and I look back at these things and I definitely regret the way I acted, you know, that’s really unlike me, but I was just frustrated and you just do these things.”
“I wish I wouldn’t have done that, I wish I would have gone about that a better way, just from people watching and I don’t ever want to set a bad example, and I’ll be honest with you, I went over there and got my ass kicked, for sure. I ate a two-piece and got tagged pretty good, but I just wanted to show my displeasure.”
Blaney was involved in a post-race scuffle with Carson Hocevar, which quickly devolved into chaos on pit road. The Team Penske driver came to find the driver of the No. 77 after the race, because of an incident on-track where the two made contact and Blaney was sent into the Turn 1 wall, ending his evening and dampening his chances at a championship.
The incident itself, after Blaney went back and looked at it, the driver of the No. 12 Ford Mustang Dark Horse says was a racing deal.
“I’d say it’s a 50-50, you know, I was wanting to protect the bottom, he was wanting to get to the bottom, and I was there late by a little bit and neither of us wanted to give – I wanted the bottom, he wanted there – and I ended up getting turned. Really, I’d put it on both parties, I don’t think – he’s not 100% to blame, I’m not 100% to blame, but it’s just two guys fighting for the bottom at Bristol.”
The aftermath of the incident, Blaney says, played out much differently than it usually does, for him, whereas instead of being heated, right away, and then cooling down as the night progressed, the opposite happened – the sense of being out of Saturday’s event, losing a lot of ground in the championship, and having a wrecked race car started to get under his skin.
“I think frustration has been building for the last couple of weeks – Darlington went okay, just the Gateway deal last week, having a good car, losing brakes, and throwing away a good finish, that stinks, I think it was just like what else can got wrong? That part, I think, started to boil a bit in me.”
After making it back to the Team Penske hauler to watch his damaged No. 12 Wabash Ford Mustang Dark Horse get loaded back into the truck, Blaney watched the end of the race, where he saw his teammate Joey Logano take the victory. But, the former champion admits seeing the cars come back to pit road probably didn’t help the situation.
Then, he went on a mission.
“I didn’t tell any of my guys where I was going,” Blaney said. “I just handed [Jonathan Hassler] my phone and just said ‘hold this’ and I left, he had no idea what that meant.”
“I walk over there, and there are things I regret. I didn’t really have a huge plan, really, the only plan I had was I’m going to have a stern conversation with Carson, I wasn’t planning on throwing anything, I pretty much just wanted to grab him and yell at him and show my displeasure… but, I look at it as if someone comes up to me, and granted I pushed him the chest and kind of grabbed him aggressively, that youre probably going to defend yourself.”
Blaney says Hocevar landed a pretty solid right-hand to his cheekbone (which knocked the hat square off his head), and he decided at that point he was going to fight back, but found that he couldn’t do so, since he was being held back by one of the security guards, making his arm immobile.
“He got me, and then the other Spire guys are closing in, too, for the second one, I see the second [punch] coming, and I’m kind of immobilized, and in my mind, I’m like, alright, I’m just going to eat this thing and yell at him and stare at him while I eat this other right, and I give it to him, he tagged me in the same exact spot he tagged me the first time, right in my cheekbone.”
Blaney and the security guard were then tackled to the ground, but just when you thought the fight was over, Blaney proved scrappy and went back in to try and get back to Hocevar and land a punch, which he says he missed.
NASCAR confirmed Monday, shortly after the release of Actions Detrimental, that no penalties would be assessed to either Hocevar or Blaney for the fight – but the sanctioning body would be looking into potential penalties for the crew guys.
