KANSAS CITY, Kan. – In the aftermath of last Saturday’s post-race fisticuffs between Ryan Blaney and Carson Hocevar at Bristol Motor Speedway, cooler heads have prevailed as the NASCAR Cup Series arrives at Kansas Speedway for Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 (3 p.m. ET on USA, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Blaney now says the late-race wreck that lit his fuse was more of a 50/50 racing incident, with Blaney trying to block and Hocevar refusing to lift. The end result, though, was calamity for Blaney, whose No. 12 Team Penske Ford was damaged beyond repair after contact with the outside wall.
“These things happen,” said Blaney, sporting a dark shiner under his left eye from the two right hooks Hocevar landed after Blaney shoved him on pit road. “The thing on track happens really, really fast and you making decisions in a split-second of a moment and sometimes you can be skewed or not skewed of what you think happened or what actually happened.
“And then, reflecting on it for a day, watching the incident… stuff like that was like, yeah, pretty 50-50, I thought. Just kind of a racing thing of Bristol of two guys being aggressive with the line they wanted to be in.”
Hocevar thought the brawl at Bristol might actually have a positive effect.
“This tends to be the stuff that brings people closer together, and you laugh about it,” Hocevar said. “I’ve never had a problem, really, with him on a race track. We’ve been running good together.
“I think he’s as stand-up of a guy as he could be. He could look at it and know that that was just racing and whatnot. In the heat of the moment, ever driver is going to be biased towards themselves.”
In fact, Hocevar expressed admiration for Blaney’s appearance on Denny Hamlin’s show “Actions Detrimental” – with the black eye in full view.
“I think Ryan’s one of the coolest guys in the garage,” Hocevar said. “I mean, he’s got a cool mustache, drinks whiskey and all that, right? I think he looks the part really well. I thought he made me more of a fan, honestly. When he went on there (Hamlin’s show), I had respect for that, for sure. He could have held some ice on his eye and whatnot, but he went right out there and did it, and I have the utmost respect for that.
“I didn’t want to hit him, and looking back, I 100-percent see where he wanted to maybe just throw a shove in there and then yell. I think we both saw each other, but in the moment, you’re not going to see that. You’re going to predict the worst.”
Kyle Larson prefers his new position atop Chase standings
Kyle Larson already has defied conventional wisdom.
Three races into the NASCAR Cup Series Chase presented by Mobil 1, the driver of the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet has come from seventh to start the postseason to the top of the standings.
That’s a 56-point swing from the start of the Chase, a move many observers thought unlikely.
The only driver to score top-five finishes in all three Chase races so far, Larson claimed the series lead last Saturday with a second-place finish at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Though he’s only one point ahead of Denny Hamlin, the top seed entering the Chase, Larson says that one-point matters.
“I would always rather be one point ahead than one point behind,” Larson said on Saturday morning at Kansas Speedway. “But even going back to after the win (in the second Chase race at World Wide Technology Raceway), I think we were nine points back, and I was like, ‘OK, we’re there… we have a shot.’
“Now that you’re leading, nothing really changes, other than you’d like to not fall back. But even if you do, you still have time to make up for it. We’ll just keep plugging away. I’ve been really happy with the speed and, especially, the execution in these first three.
“I think they’ve gone pretty flawless for our team. Now we have some tracks that we probably are even more confident at than the first three, outside of Bristol. But, yeah, it’s just tough. It’s a lot of racing, a lot of tough competitors, and just a tough, tough series.”
Daniel Suarez relishes arrival of son Otto
On Tuesday, Daniel Suarez and wife Julia Piquet announced the arrival of their first child, son Otto Suarez Piquet.
The baby arrived after the due date but thankfully didn’t prevent Suarez from racing last Saturday at Bristol Motor Speedway.
“We got a little lucky there,” Suarez said. “On Saturday morning, we were at the hospital, and they told us it could happen in the next 12 hours, so I was a little bit concerned. When I went to Bristol to race, I was a little bit nervous. It was a little bit of a stress race for me, but luckily things worked out.”
Suarez was thrilled to be able to witness the birth of his son.
“It was pretty incredible,” he said. “I’ve got more respect for women, especially moms, because it’s crazy what they have to go through to give birth. Julia worked her butt off for two days to get to that point before giving birth.
“For me to get to experience it first-hand, it was very shocking, honestly. I never imagined it was going to be this tough, and it was.”
The couple picked the name “Otto” not because of a family association, but simply because they liked it.
“It’s a name that we both like and heard for the first time a few years ago,” Suarez said. “We did a little research on it, and it’s a German name that means ‘prosperity.’
“Julia is 25-percent German, so we thought it would be kind of nice to have a little something that is German. And it’s a name that we really liked.”
–Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service
