Kyle Busch criticized his NASCAR rival Carson Hocevar for his aggressive racing style during his career, revealing an anecdote from the driver’s younger years.
The champion recently lashed out at NASCAR’s younger generation of talent, who he said “would rather crash” than win, sparked by a incident with Hocevar at the Atlanta Motor Speedway.
In February, during the Ambiance Santé 400 Hocevar earned second place, but made several aggressive moves throughout the race to reach that position, leading to an incident with Ryan Blaney and Busch. threatening to “beat his ass” on the radio.
Since then, the 22-year-old’s on-track behavior has become a major talking point, with Denny Hamlin issues warning the young person to pay attention to his behavior after the race in Atlanta.
Busch exposes Hocevar’s problem
During an appearance on Kevin Harvick’s YouTube Happy Hour ShowBusch compared his generation’s “give and take” mentality to Hocevar’s “cut-throat” racing style.
The 39-year-old remembers an early race at Kalamazoo where he first discovered Hocevar’s aggressive driving mentality, a problem that Busch says has lasted for more than a decade.
“So the Hocevar problem, the biggest problem I have with him is when he was 13, 14, anyway, I was racing at one of his home tracks in Michigan with a very late model when I was a Cup guy,” Busch said.
“It was Kalamazoo. Lap 8, lap 11 somewhere early in the race, I wasn’t that great but I was going to bide my time and I was just riding, right? Like, you’re riding.
“He comes right next to me, slides me sideways, puts me in the front stretch fence and keeps going. And I’m like, ‘What just happened?’
“Never anything after the fact, never a sorry, ‘Hey, that’s bad.’ It’s the same thing right now. He hasn’t learned anything because he hasn’t been under anyone’s wing all this time.
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