Christopher Bell celebrated on the frontstretch at Atlanta Motor Speedway with fireworks going off in the distance.
Meanwhile, there was a line of drivers waiting to chat with Carson Hocevar on pit road.
Bell won the race but it wasn’t due to a lack of effort from Hocevar who throughout the closing stages of the race drew the ire of Ross Chastain and Ryan Blaney. Kyle Busch would likely want a word at some point too.
This doesn’t even include Chevrolet, who will no doubt take some degree of umbrage with Hocevar pushing Bell to the win past Hendrick Motorsports driver Kyle Larson. Beyond the manufacturer standpoint, Hendrick Motorsports supplies engines and technical support to Spire Motorsports.
Hocevar, the reigning NASCAR Cup Series rookie of the year, is a hard driving racer still seeking his first win and exhausted no shortage of effort to make it happen throughout the entire race.
For Bell, the victory served as a major boost to JGR, which had not won since June 23. The company did not finish the second half as strong as the first and it restructured its entire competition team as a result.
In fact, the only driver-team combination to have not received a shuffle was Bell and Adam Stevens. They were the most recent to win and they are once again, albeit at the intermediate superspeedway track that Atlanta has become in modern times.
“I am glad we don’t have to hear that,” Bell said after the race. “That Joe Gibbs Racing has not won since June. I’m very happy to end that narrative.”
Stevens said it was never a reflection of their prowess, however.
“You know, that is a long time,” he said. “That’s a long time for the organization to go, for sure, and a long time for this 20 team to go but we were super competitive in that gap and had a lot of opportunities slip through our fingers for a litany of reasons that I won’t even go through.
“So for us, we didn’t feel like it was lack of performance. On occasion it was lack of execution, and on other occasions it was just pure circumstance. You’re going to have that. We had that today in our favor. I feel like the changes that were made in the off-season are nothing but a colossal positive for Joe Gibbs Racing, for my team, and for the future success of our company.
“I think that maybe we’ve seen a little bit of that this year already. We were pretty sporty as a whole in Daytona, and we certainly all qualified better. We had competitive cars here today once we got the balance close. Probably not the two best examples, but we get six or eight races into the season, I think you’re going to see a lot more competitive Joe Gibbs Racing.”
Hocevar v The World
Hocevar drew the ire of Busch earlier in the race with a de facto slide job that caused the two-time Cup Series champion to say he would wreck the whole field to retaliate, because he’s over it, and that the younger driver is a douchebag.
Blaney was made at Hocevar because of this …
And then, on the green-white-checkered finish, Hocevar bounced off several of his fellow contenders including Chastain and Josh Berry.
At first, Hocevar joked and said Chastain just wanted to talk about Chili’s Big Smash Burger. Chili’s is a Spire Motorsports sponsor. But when pressed, Hocevar shared a little insight.
“Yeah, I mean, sometimes you agree and disagree at things and ultimately I felt like I made the decision that was to win the race and we’ll continue to talk about it,” Hocevar said. “Obviously, we have each other’s phone numbers.”
Hocevar is represented by Motorsports Management International, the agency that features Chastain as a partner in the ownership group. Hocevar very much views Chastain as a mentor and they both still drive for Niece Motorsports in the Truck Series.
“I was talking to Al Niece today, this morning, and he said he roots for two guys on Sundays. So, ultimately, it was fun to have us lined up there at the end.”
What did Chastain say?
“I’ll let him speak for himself and all I can say is what happened from my view,” he said.
Blaney wanted a word too, and while Chastain declined to talk afterwards, the 2023 Cup Series champion said exactly what was on his mind.
“I just said, ‘Hey, you got to calm down.’ I told him a couple moves he made earlier in the race that were really, really sketchy, obviously me getting spun,” Blaney said. “He should know better than to hit me in that spot. Like, you can’t just run into my bumper as I’m turning into the corner. Like, I’m going to wreck. So, I just told him, ‘You got to calm down. You got a lot of talent, but you got to be a little bit easier in certain moments and be a little smarter.’”
And for his part, Hocevar said he will learn from it.
“I mean, everything’s a learning experience even if you win,” Hocevar said. “So yeah, that’s for sure.”
He also said that ‘you have to lose races to know how to win them,’ and that he hopes this portends his next opportunity to reach Victory Lane in the months to come. With that said, he was also adamant and defiant in his convictions.
“We’re here to win races, not be a boy band and love each other and play in the playground together,” Hocevar said. “Obviously, there’s learning lessons. You don’t want to piss anybody off or frustrate anybody. There’s things I would clean up for sure.”
Manufacturer snafu?
While most in the NASCAR community would prefer a drafting race environment where anyone can push anyone to the win without repercussion, the modern Cup Series environment is not that world.
In fact, before superspeedway events, the heads of each manufacturer explicitly tell their drivers not to push a driver from a different manufacturer to the win.
Hocevar did exactly that, pushing Bell past Larson, likely drawing at least some annoyance from Hendrick and Chevrolet.
“I mean, if that was off (Turn 4), you don’t push him but into (Turn) Three, I just hit him to get him off the middle,” Hocevar said. “So yeah, I mean it sucks, the optics of it for sure. It’s not fun to do that, especially for how well I feel like we were working right now with Hendrick Motorsports and Mr. H. They do a lot for us.
“So to have that happen, the result is not exactly by any means what I wanted but at the same time, I felt like I wanted to be in the middle and not pushing a car off (Turn) 4. I never heard they were wrecking and you can’t assume they’re going to crash and cause a yellow and lift.
“You’re never going to do that. Unfortunately, it was just bad timing. If it goes green and we win the race, I don’t think that’s a problem.”
Race ending caution
NASCAR is trying to provide consistency and clarity to what is and is not a race ending caution on the final lap but this weekend did little to clear things up.
On Saturday, during the Xfinity Series race, NASCAR allowed the race to stay green despite a caution that had drivers racing through a debris field. On Sunday morning during the drivers’ meeting, NASCAR senior vice president of competition Elton Sawyer said that was a mistake.
“My last comment will be, based on (Saturday) night’s race, our goal is to finish our races under green conditions,” Sawyer said. “That’s our No. 1 goal. Also, we’re not going to be racing through a debris field. So you can expect cautions to come out based on (Saturday) night. That was on us.
“So a situation that comes up today like (Saturday) night will be a caution.”
And to their credit, NASCAR did throw the caution on Sunday but doing so also leaves fans feeling dissatisfied.
Unorthodox record
It’s not exactly the record Michael McDowell wants to set but he will accept it nonetheless.
The Spire Motorsports driver fell off the pace early in the race and lost six laps to replace a power steering pump. He returned to the track, and due to the lack of drivers falling off the lead lap, received a free pass to get a lap back in six of the next cautions.
It put him back on the lead lap and he went onto finish 13th.
“You know, coming into the garage and coming into the DVP area and getting it fixed and yeah, we lost six laps, but it worked out, we got ’em all back and had a chance at fighting for a top 10 there on the last lap,” McDowell said. “So not the day we wanted. Obviously, you want to be up front racing all day long but a great recovery and it was one of those ‘grinding’ kind of days. And we came out of here with a solid race and some points.”
He’s 14th on the playoff grid after two races and came away with two records.
His six free passes is tied for the most all-time and his six consecutive free passes set a new mark. Are those records he wants?
“I don’t think so,” he said with a laugh. “I think you just want to stay on the lead lap and up in the top five all night long. You don’t want that. But I’m glad that it worked out. I’m glad because someone could have popped a tire or lost the draft. It’s really easy for one car to go one lap down and then you never get the free pass, let alone six times in a row.”
He listed all the things that could have denied him this dubious record like Todd Gilliland cutting a tire or Erik Jones’ crash damage.
“So everything worked out perfect for us,” McDowell said. “Because one lap, give or take either time and we’re not getting that free pass and we stay down four laps the rest of the night. So it went our way and we’re thankful for that. We made the most of it there at the end.”
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.