NASCAR insiders weigh in on Carson Hocevar saying SMT data shows Harrison Burton is to blame for penalized incident

Two NASCAR insiders weighed in on Carson Hocevar saying that Harrison Burton is to blame for the incident that led to Hocevar being penalized. On The Teardown podcast, Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic said they didn’t like that Hocevar didn’t take responsibility for hooking Burton during the Nashville Cup Series race last week.

“Hocevar basically said he thought there was some SMT data that sort of showed otherwise indicating that Harrison slammed on the break. That’s why he was spun out,” Gluck said. “He basically said that his team sort of rallied around him and backed him and indicated that he wasn’t really taking a lesson from it, I don’t think. I didn’t hear another that was like ‘Oh my gosh, that was totally the right call. I shouldn’t have done that. That was really bad. I’ve learned my lesson now. I didn’t really hear a lot of that.”

Bianchi also didn’t like what Hoecevar had to say about the incident. “If he’s going to sit there and say it’s SMT data, well then in that case it seems to be happening to him a lot,” he said. “That’s the problem is that this is not the first time you’ve been in an incident like this, and there always seems to be some kind of justification.

Carson Hocevar has had similar incidents in his NASCAR career

“…At some point, your record is what your record is. I just look at it and it’s… There’s been questions about his maturity coming in the Cup Series because of the incidents in the Tuck Series, and they were repeated. There was a lot of concerns about is he ready to handle this. He’s done a fairly good job, but there has been a couple of things that kind of flared up. …It doesn’t matter what the SMT data shows. It is very clear he hooked him and made contact with him.”

Hocevar, 21, was fined $50,000 and docked 25 driver points for hooking Burton under caution. Before the Chicago race this past week, Burton spoke to Bob Pockrass of Fox Sports about the incident.

“I mean, if you see the SMT, I think you’ll understand. I think that shows a different picture, completely, of the whole situation, but I’m not going to — there’s no point for me to release that, or do anything. It is what it is. I’ll move on,” Hocevar said. “My team is very supportive of me, and I think they fully believe and are in full support. They’ve reassured me of that. That’s really what matters to me.”

On3’s Steve Samra contributed to this story.

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