A Star Is Born in Alabama

A Star Is Born in AlabamaSean Gardner - Getty Images

I happened to be having dinner in a Chili’s restaurant at the moment that Carson Hocevar crossed the Talladega Superspeedway finish line in a Chili’s-sponsored Chevrolet to win Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race.

I suddenly felt like running outside, jumping in my car, leaving most of my body outside the vehicle and making fast laps around the parking lot.

Fortunately, the chips and salsa arrived and drew my attention elsewhere.

Elsewhere on Sunday, a star was born in Alabama.

Hocevar has been building a star resume for many months now, making news, making moves, making friends and enemies, making money, making sponsors happy. What he needed to complete the resume was what happened in Sunday’s Alabama sunshine—a star turn on the last lap, an eyelash victory, and a celebration unlike all celebrations before.

Keep this up, and Hocevar could become one of the most famous Carsons since Johnny.

It’s one thing to have a bright, controversial, ever-present personality like Hocevar’s, but that can carry one only so far. To prove he could be both dynamic and a winner completes the circle.

“We certainly saw a star in the making,” said Spire Motorsports co-owner Jeff Dickerson. “Today it looks like we knew what we were doing.

“This kid knows how to stand on the gas, right? He has probably the most irrational confidence of a driver I’ve ever seen. That somehow pays off, right?”

Bouncy and brash, Hocevar is a sponsor’s delight. And, if the fans’ reaction to his over-the-top and outside-the-window post-race extravaganza is a good predictor, the people who print his T-shirts might be getting some overtime pay.

That’s a good thing for Hocevar, and it’s an even better thing for NASCAR, which has needed the kind of vibrangt boost he gave the sport Sunday.

“There’s no mold for Carson Hocevar,” said crew chief Luke Lambert. “Nobody had a focus group to decide what a driver should look like and came up with Carson Hocevar. He is unapologetically himself. He’s unique. Never met anybody that’s exactly like him. He brings that to the fans and is open to the fans like that. I think it’s really refreshing. I think people see their sons, their friends, people they know in the real world, and can relate to him when he was raw to the general public.”