“It’s time he learns a lesson, he’s run his mouth long enough… He’s nothing but a little rich kid.”A scathing assessment of Joey Logano by none other than Tony Stewart. This bout of frustration came after their duel at Auto Club Speedway in 2013. Stewart was frustrated at Logano for wrecking the race for both of them. If that wasn’t enough, Logano, being Stewart’s replacement at Joe Gibbs Racing after the latter moved to Stewart-Haas Racing, was just another chip on Stewart’s shoulder. However, this incident was 12 years ago, and in modern-day NASCAR, you just don’t see such personalities. Until one kid from Michigan lit up the grid this year.

Folks, we have a new villain in town. The 2024 Rookie of the Year, Carson Hocevar, showed in Atlanta that he’s also willing to do whatever it takes to be a front-runner in a race. Look at Atlanta. He first had a tussle, trading paint with Rowdy. Then, he bumped Ryan Blaney and spun him out while turning. Traded paint with his mentee Ross Chastain. Almost knocked Christopher Bell out of the race with a big bump. And after all that he finally took P2, but not before making contact with Kyle Larson and almost spinning him too. That got him the reputation of NASCAR’s next villain. And to be honest, everyone loved it! Fans and drivers, both. Recently, Tony Stewart’s former driver has called for more of such aggression.

According to Noah Gragson, we need more Hocevars!

It’s no secret that NASCAR’s popularity has tanked. Last season was probably the most controversial in recent memory. Joey Logano was crowned champion with an average finish of 17.1. Which is the lowest for a champion in the history of the sport. This caused an uproar in the NASCAR community, with fans demanding change. But NASCAR has gone with the same format in 2025 as well. So, not everyone is happy, and the numbers show that. The spring Phoenix race had 4 million viewers last season. That number this year has reduced to 2.8 million. That’s a significant drop, and it’s got a lot to do with the declining popularity of the sport.

NASCAR is trying to fix that by going global, introducing more international venues, and making the sport exciting. But what it really needs is to take a step back and see what worked in the 90s that made the sport so popular. And Noah Gragson believes one solution is to have more aggressive drivers. Drivers doing what they think is right and not just making moves to stay in everyone’s good books. In a recent interview with The Athletic, Gragson said, “You’ve got to get these guys to show their personality.”

Also, the ex-Stewart Haas Racing driver believes that the problem is having multiple sponsors. ‘You try to appease one, you p– the other off.’ In the golden days of NASCAR, drivers had mostly just one sponsor for the entire season. And so their personality also remained the same throughout. This made them more relatable to the audience. And that’s what is needed. “It just makes it impossible for these guys to be outspoken and really show who they are, because they don’t want to p— anybody off…It’s all about characters. I love what Carson Hocevar is doing right now. Is he a pain in the a– to race against? One-thousand percent. Is he being successful on the racetrack? One-thousand percent. At the end of the day, he’s got people talking. He’s got the pot stirred up. And he’s kind of the villain right now. He needs to double down on that and sell T-shirts, get people talking,” Gragson added.

And Hocevar needs to keep this persona up, both to establish himself as a strong driver on the track and also to make the sport interesting. Before Hocevar, it was his mentee Ross Chastain playing this role. And Gragson’s jaw knows this a little too well. If you recall, Chastain always tested the water with veterans like Denny Hamlin, Kyle Larson, or NASCAR’s most popular driver, Chase Elliott. Or his epic Hail Melon move to just keep his title fight on in 2022. Chastain was looked at as the savior of the sport, the next ‘Intimidator.’ However, it died down in mid-2023, 2024. He’s become mellow now.

And we don’t know the reason. Maybe it was Rick Hendrick warning him to take it easy with his drivers: “I don’t care. I’ve told Chevrolet that. If you wreck us, you’re going to get it back. If you don’t do it, they’ll run all over you.” But Hocevar should not let the same thing happen to him! And Kyle Larson has some advice for him.

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Kyle Larson on Hocevar’s aggression

Folks, if you remember the things that happened post the Atlanta race, there was a queue of drivers wanting to speak with Hocevar. To ask him to take it easy. But one driver missing there was Larson. And while we expected Mr. H to issue the same warning to Hocevar as Chastain, Kyle Larson found no problem with his driving. Even though Hocevar almost spun him on that final lap.

Larson said, “For me in particular and in my race, I had no issue. Obviously, I could see the moves that he was making and whatnot throughout the whole race. But I don’t know, it’s hard for me to sit here and judge because I’m an aggressive driver, and I put somebody else in the fence in the same race.” It probably reminded Larson of his younger days. According to him, he had the same mentality starting off.

“So, it’s hard for me to judge, but I think as a young guy, at least for me in my case, you know, I wanted to be aggressive when I came into the sport because that’s who I am, that’s my style, and I feel like that’s why I am successful and have gotten to where I was,” the #5 driver added.

However, Larson had one piece of advice for Hocevar, and it was to pick your battles carefully. Now, rattling Rowdy’s chain might not be the best thing. Look at how pissed Kyle Busch was, “I don’t care if I wreck the whole [expletive] field. I’m over him. He’s a [expletive] douchebag. I’m going to wreck his a–.” Larson thinks Hocevar should not upset the veterans. Larson said, “But in the beginning, I also didn’t want to ruffle any feathers, especially the veterans of the series…It just makes your career much harder. They can make life tough on you so I think you just want as little enemies as you can get coming in.”

Still, let’s hope to see more Hocevar drama in the future. What do you think, folks? Should Hocevar continue with his antics or should he dial it down a tone? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.