Zane Smith’s Crew Chief Allegedly Threatened to “Beat” Carson Hocevar’s Crew Chief After Phoenix Race

One of the long-standing beef Carson Hocevar has in NASCAR is with Front Raw Motorsports’ Zane Smith. The most recent run-in between the duo happened a couple weeks ago at Phoenix, in the Freeway Insurance 500, where the No:38 aggressively slammed into the back of the No:77 post-race over a misunderstanding about an incident late in the race, where the Chevy driver was innocent.

Since them the two sides have been taking shot at each other. Ryan Flores the co-host of the Stacking Pennies podcast, who had previously worked at Spire revealed the crew chiefs of the two teams also had a wild altercation over the drama. He revealed that Ryan Bergenty of FRM threatened to beat the No:77 crew chief Luke Lambert.

A chain reaction in the closing laps causes tempers to flare post-race. https://t.co/iuWGk0ONqb

— NASCAR (@NASCAR) October 19, 2026

I had a talk with Ryan Bergenty this week because Ryan Bergenty, Zane Smith’s crew chief, in post-race last week with the Zane stuff, there was a little bit of an altercation. Where he told Luke Lambert that he’d beat his a**. We talked about that.

Ryan Flores revealed.

The situation irked Flores so much, as he still has a close association with his former team and respect what they have done for him. On the podcast, the ex-Spire Motorsports crew member revealed that would have had an altercation with the Zane Smith’s Cup crew chief for the threat he made.  

I went over there because I said, you’re lucky I’m not on the 77 anymore. I would’ve whooped you’re a** last week.

Ryan Flores added on Stacking Pennies podcast.

The whole dynamic of the Smith-Carson Hocevar beef intriguing. Though they have had multiple run-ins over the years, it’s often seemed on-sided. That’s exactly what the No:77 driver feels, as recently said he doesn’t really care about the supposed beef.

No, it seems pretty one-sided to me a little bit. So, I don’t really care. I mean, yeah, I don’t, I don’t care.

Carson Hocevar said about the beef.

Zane Smith got a massive $50K fine for the Carson Hocevar drama

Hitting Hocevar in the bumper, when it was Ross Chastain who was the blame for the incident, in the cool down lap with the pace that exceeded 130mph was too much for NASCAR. That’s why they decided to punish the racer. The fact that the sports talked with both driver in the hauler in the past, urging them to stop the shenanigan’s made the decision easy according to Mike Forde.

We want aggression, we want passion. But this one was a little bit different than that, in our opinion, largely because of the conversation we had and the ask that we had that we felt was largely ignored.

Mike Forde said.

Zane Smith was given a whopping $50,000 fine, one of the biggest punishment a driver go so far in the 2026 season. The FRM driver needs to be more careful with his actions in the coming days while racing Hocevar, as he should double check if it was really the no:77 driver fault if they get in an incident before retaliating. If not, there would be bigger consequences.

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