Kevin Harvick doesn’t want Carson Hocevar to change.
While the likes of Austin Dillon and Bubba Wallace expressed frustrations on Sunday at Michigan International Speedway, specifically over a Lap 83 restart where Hocevar tagged the rear of John Hunter Nemechek and ignited a melee, the 2014 champion doesn’t want to see an overcorrection.
“I think that my advice to Carson Hocevar from the beginning of the year to now would be much different,” Harvick said on his Happy Hour podcast and YouTube show. “I think that he’s learned enough about how to manage the situations and not tear up his own car. He’s going to continue to put people in a bad spot, but I think that’s how you’ve got to race the Gen 7 car.
“I would tell him to keep doing what he’s doing because that’s what makes him good. He’s got this ability.”
Dale Earnhardt Jr. echoed a similar sentiment after the race on the Prime Video broadcast but also added that Hocevar provides a tremendous amount of entertainment behind the wheel too.
More than anything else, Harvick just wants to see Harvick continue to soften the edges born from his own inexperience and continue to develop his aggressive race craft. For example, Harvick doesn’t think the contact with Nemechek was inherently wrong but believes he should have hit him square and stayed on the bumper.
“He’s going to teach himself all those things, and I think that when he goes back and looks at this video he’s going to realize, ‘I could have prevented that just with a couple feet to the left and hitting him square,’” Harvick said. “That’s really what caused the wreck. He probably could have hit him with the same speed.
“But I think what makes him great is what he is. He’s going to teach himself those things. I would encourage him to keep going because mentally it doesn’t bother him.”
Mostly, Harvick believes that Hocevar would become a worse driver if Spire Motorsports ever tried to fundamentally change him.
“You can’t take a guy that drives like that and try to make him somebody different,” Harvick said. “They have to learn on their own in trying to put themselves in the right spot and manage those little situations, but you’ve got to turn them loose or they’re going to be somebody who they’re not, and it won’t be good.”
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