It was one of the most epic victory celebrations in the history of motorsports on Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway.
Carson Hocevar, who stands 6'4", sat on his door against the B-post and was able to work the clutch and throttle to be able to drive both ways around the track while personally waving to the attending fans following his win in the Jack Link’s 500.
In fact, someone even tossed a beer towards him and the driver was within a foot of actually catching it. He drove into the wall, enough to make him worry about damaging it before post-race inspection, and then burned it down.
His friend, YouTube sensation turned NASCAR hopeful Cleetus McFarland, called into the press conference and told Hocevar that it was an "immaculate burnout."
He had thought about doing this upon winning a Cup race for quite a while.
“No, I was sitting on the door,” Hocevar said. “I had my left foot... What I had to do is I couldn't get -- I couldn't twist my foot around with the steering wheel on to drop the clutch. I had to drop the clutch with the (steering) wheel off.”
This is when he realized new NASCAR CEO Steve O’Donnell attended the press conference.
“Sorry Steve,” Hocevar said looking over at the three-decade long executive, who then said he was good with it.
This was kind of a surprise, because had previously banned victory celebrations deemed risky, especially involving taking the steering wheel of. Hocevar was literally sitting outside of his car like he was Dale Earnhardt wiping his windshield at the Richmond Fairgrounds.
“Perfect,” Hocevar said at the response from the CEO.
“So I had the wheel off, I dropped the clutch, and I was hustling to get the wheel on. And I got the wheel on, turned around. So it just kind of idled for me. And then as I felt more comfortable riding on the door, I was just kind of moving the steering wheel a little bit, stayed straight. Then I started giving it gas. Yeah, that's how I did it.
“I was really worried about how I was going to hit the wall and do the burnout against it. It wasn't that hard of a hit. Just burned it down. I wanted to at least burn it down next to the deal. That was the biggest thing. It took me a while to figure out how to do it. Once I did it, I haven't had a phone, I haven't seen anything, hopefully it was cool.”
Literally everyone on Earth found it cool, including McFarland, who called into the press conference and had a conversation with Hocevar.
“I was screaming,” Cleetus said, a day removed from a second-place finish in the ARCA race. “I was screaming. Then the burnout, immaculate, brother, immaculate.”
It was in that moment that Hocevar realized he actually came up with the celebration last year running a Crown Vic race that the YouTuber puts on every year at his Freedom Factory track in Bradenton, Florida – the former Desoto Speedway Park.
"I just realized, I literally did the celebration riding on the door at (2.4 Hours of) Le Mullets," Hocevar said. " I'm such an idiot. I forgot about that. I did that."
Anyway, is this a new thing he will do moving forward?
“I don't know,” Hocevar said, before looking over at O’Donnell.
“Steve, is it banned?”
The chief executive shook his head ‘no.’
He also addressed it on Monday morning.
"The only thing I would tell him try not to hit the wall, that was the moment I was like 'uh oh' but 30 years in NASCAR, that was one of the coolest celebrations,' O'Donnell said. "And to see the fans react to what he did, it was an iconic moment, and perfect for Talladega."
Hocevar's reaction?
“Perfect.”
