Ricky Stenhouse Jr. walked up to Carson Hocevar’s car after the Mexico City Cup Series race and threatened him for allegedly driving into him for the second time. The incident occurred weeks after Hocevar crashed into Stenhouse Jr. at Nashville Superspeedway.
Stenhouse Jr. was furious that Hocevar made contact again in Mexico, marking a second incident between the two drivers in the same month. The Hyak Motorsports driver walked up to Hocevar’s car after the race and said:
“I’m going to beat your a**. You’re a lap down. You got nothing to do. Why did you run right into me? Second time.”
He added before walking away:
“I’m going to beat your a** when we get back to the States.”
Speaking to FOX Sports’ Bob Pockrass, Hocevar admitted it was his fault and explained his side of the story. He said:
“I know he was very mad, and I was very apologetic. I just got left and in the marbles and slid a lot longer than I expected. Obviously, No. 1, that’s not somebody I would ever want to hit again. But No. 2, I wasn’t racing anything. I was just logging laps, just trying to wait on a yellow and maybe see if we can put our day back together.
“I just hit a curb wrong and got in the marbles and slid all the way through the corner. I tried to turn left and avoid him. But just a really, really sloppy day by me. And then that was another incident of the day that was really just sloppy.”
Stenhouse Jr. called it a dumb move by Hocevar. He told Bob Pockrass:
“I told him on the phone [after Nashville], if it happens again, we’re going to have issues. And then that one was even worse because he’s a lap down. He’s racing nobody.
“I was working on the 34 [of Todd Gilliland] trying to work my way forward. The tire attrition was pretty difficult coming down to the end of it. And just from two, three [lengths] back, he just ran right in the back of us. A really dumb move, two out of three weeks on me now.”
The race in Nashville early this month saw Stenhouse Jr. lose several positions after he was hit by Carson from behind, causing him to hit the wall at high speed. Stenhouse Jr. hinted back then that a payback was coming for Carson. Newsweek Sports reported:
“A lap or two before, he [Hocevar] tried to dive in there from about 10 car lengths back and then that time, I just opened my entry a little bit and he over-charged the corner and drilled us in the rear bumper.
“I’d say it’s not out of the norm from him, but I definitely wasn’t expecting that at that point of the race. It’s just a bummer for us.”
He added: “Bummed our day ended like that. Definitely will have something to do about it at one point.”
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