Dale Earnhardt Jr. SLAM Critics for Blaming iRacing For Carson Hocevar’s Aggressiveness

NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr. has come in the defense of Carson Hocevar amidst widespread criticism of his racing style.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. SLAM Critics for Blaming iRacing For Carson Hocevar’s Aggressiveness

Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Carson Hocevar (via imago)

Spire Motorsports’ Carson Hocevar has earned a name for himself in the last two season as one of the most aggressive racing drivers in the garage. Recently some of his critics has highlighted iRacing as one of the reasons for the young Chevy driver’s bad habits on the tracks. Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr. isn’t a big fan of criticism.

The lack of real consequences in iRacing enables him to make aggressive moves in the sims and that spills over to the track. Dale Jr., who also does sim races and has a close association with iRacing didn’t like this criticism in the latest episode of his podcast. He called out these comments in the latest episode of his podcast, highlighting how important sim racing are for the drivers.

My argument to that is, I would absolutely encourage people to run online to get race-craft and decision-making and judgment calls… Specifically, especially for superspeedway racing like Daytona and Talladega and road courses. It’s extremely valuable as a tool to run road courses on iRacing at home when you can’t be in the sim.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. said.

Furthermore, the racer asserted that sim racing helps drivers to develop a strong mentality and highlighted it helps the drivers to develop a success formula for superspeedways. This is because the sim racing helps drivers to learn how to make quick decision, which is important to succeed in such venues.

The mentality is successful. The racing at Daytona, racing at Atlanta, racing at Talladega is a frame of mind. It is a skill, but it’s a mental approach… You’re making decisions. Everything you’re doing, you’re doing with your mind, not the seat of the pants

Dale Earnhardt Jr. added via Dale Jr. Download.

Furthermore, the veteran highlighted how the digital revolution has changed the world and how people prefer instant reactions. Dale Earnhardt Jr. admitted that he himself has to work a lot on himself to calm down on certain situation.

In the online racing world, there’s no real repercussions to being reactive. But everything about our world right now is that instant reaction. I’m 51 years old and I have to sometimes tell myself, calm the hell down.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. asserted.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. got the perfect advice for Carson Hocevar

In the same podcast later, the Hall of Famer explained how he is in contact with the Spire racer always and how he advices him amidst controversies. Junior has told Carson Hocevar to ignored the noise and asserted that he needs to happy that people care about how he performs, even if that is coming in the form of criticism.

Richard Petty, Carson Hocevar and Dale Earnhardt
Richard Petty, Carson Hocevar and Dale Earnhardt (Via Sportscasting and IMAGO)

I have to text Carson all the time. I have to text Hocevar and I say, ‘Hey, we’re critical. We’re going to be critical. We’re going to talk about you.’ Your job is to buckle up and race and do your best. The noise is going to be noisy. It’s when they’re not talking about you that you need to be worried. If you’re invisible out there, if nobody’s worried about you, concerned about you, pulling for you, caring about your performance, then you’re in trouble.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. said.

The two times Busch Series champion does have a strong point, as the community criticises Hocevar because they understand he can be a great racer without being aggressive. If he can race cleaner, winning and dominating the sport will be easier for him.

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