Although there will be no mandatory "Throwback Weekend" as part of the NASCAR schedule at Darlington Raceway this weekend, some drivers and teams will pay tribute to some legends and icons with their paint schemes. This also includes Carson Hocevar, with his team Spire Motorsports paying tribute to all-time great Dale Earnhardt – to whom the young driver has been constantly compared.
In an interview with NASCAR YouTuber Eric Estep, Hocevar talked about some others comparing him to legendary driver Dale Earnhardt.
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"I'll be honest here, I don't like the comparisons. I appreciate it, obviously, but I don't know... I think we probably should have won a race now... But, just because I meet people every now and again and now I'm racing a black car here and there, I don't really see it... There's no next Dale... I just want to be me, it's that easy... I'd love to have 1 percent of Dale's success. I'd love any comparisons. It is not.”
Carson Hocevar on comparisons to Dale Earnhardt
As Hocevar told Estep, he grew up as a die-hard racing fan, and watched the various documentaries that came out about Dale Earnhardt. He knows how much the iconic driver of the No. 3 car means to NASCAR history and how much he meant to millions of fans during that era. Ultimately, Hocevar feels the comparison is a disservice to Earnhardt and unfair to the legacy he wants to build on his own.
The 23-year-old recognized his irony just days after the release of photos showing him standing near the No. 77 Chiles-sponsored car. The blue and yellow paint scheme resembles the one used for the No. 2 car in 1981, a season where Earnhardt famously sported Wrangler colors before winning dozens of races with the brand as his primary sponsor. However, Hocevar admitted that the marketing team was largely behind all this.
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It doesn't help that Hocevar and Earnhardt have been compared to some of the all-time greats. earlier this year patty race recapVeteran Richard Petty said he noticed some similarities between the two drivers.
"The boy, that 77 (Hocevar). ...Right now, a lot of the things he's doing or is doing aren't really that wrong. If I go back and watch him race and do stuff, he reminds me of Dale Earnhardt. Earnhardt has learned to work with that stuff. And the 77 boy, he just has to learn to work with the things he's doing."
Richard Petty on the similarities between Carson Hocevar and Dale Earnhardt
For Hocevar, the focus is still on scoring his first Cup Series win after coming close on a few occasions. He has made it clear that he is not changing his driving style, nor does he want to make friends with other NASCAR drivers. If winning makes him a favorite among fans and less so among his teammates, he's more than happy to take that result.
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