Carson Hocevar is basically Thanos but instead of collecting Infinity Stones, the second-year NASCAR Cup Series driver is collecting Chevrolets.
To wit, he is the driver of the No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet NextGen but has also generated headlines earlier in the summer for acquiring a 1997 Silverado pickup dressed up an in era appropriate Dale Earnhardt vinyl. This week, he acquired a 1977 Oldsmobile Cutlass dressed up as a 1980 Buddy Baker ‘Gray Ghost.’
Why has this become his hobby?
— Carson Hocevar (@CarsonHocevar) September 2, 2025
“I mean, I've always wanted cars or like street legal race cars as a kid,” Hocevar said during a press conference on Saturday at World Wide Technology Raceway. “At Kalamazoo Speedway, near where I’m from, the owner had one of the Intimidator SSs and I thought that was the coolest thing in the world.
“So every time I look on Facebook marketplace, it seems like there are more and more coming up. Either that, or it’s my algorithms knowing it or people making these listings knowing I’ll probably buy them.”
What will Hocevar add to his collection next?
Hocevar said he was ‘literally’ in the media center hallway just before his media session ‘looking at another one’ because he enjoys the intersection of car culture and NASCAR. The latest interest? A Kasey Kahne Hendrick Motorsports Car of Tomorrow from the 2012 season but it’s not for sale … yet.
The 22-year-old says he’s been surprised at the attention his very flashy, not obscure, street legal race car has garnered. For example, he blew a tire on the road in the ‘Dale Truck’ and says he got 100 honks on the side of the road and several text messages.
“You know, the first time I drove the Dale truck, I had about six people walk over to me and we talked and I was stuck at the gas station for an hour,” Hocevar said. “We just talked NASCAR. That’s what I’ve most enjoyed about it.
“When I stopped and got fuel, started rolling down the road, a bunch of people rolled down their windows and shouted ‘hell yeah,’ and honked at me. I didn’t know there were that many people on the highway that knew me and had my number because I got like eight texts and calls from people who said they saw me.”
“So, it's nice to know that if you have an issue, I guess the Dale truck's pretty obvious that if I have a problem, someone’s got the hook up.”
Hocevar learned another lesson in obscurity over the weekend at Darlington because he drove the truck to his hotel from his Charlotte area home.
“I had a few fans that were camped out in the parking lot of the hotel because they knew I was staying there and just waited until I came out because they want some things signed and they wanted pictures, which, which I thought was cool,” Hocevar said.
“But I thought I was like ‘damn,’ because that was the first time that’s ever happened. I thought maybe that was kind of weird but you also open yourself up to it when you make it very obvious and park out front and make it clear ‘yeah, I’m staying at this hotel’ but it’s been a lot of fun for me.”
He called it a ‘conversation starter’ and hopes he’s made new fans from a crowd that told him ‘I haven’t watched since Dale died’ and sees his literal vehicle as a figurative vehicle to grow the sport.
He hasn’t taken the Cutlass out yet but views in the same way.
Regardless of the availability of the Kahne COT, Hocevar is still very much in the market too. He has an Infinity Gauntlet of cars to collect now.
“I have the Oldsmobile, and I’m just trying to collect them all, the Monte Carlo, the Lumina and hopefully the COT but I need to build a shop first,” he said. “I think what is most fun is any car I get, I’m going to drive it and it’s not going to collect dust for the duster to come in on Wednesday.
“I’m going to drive them.”
