Spire Owner Theatens Further Retaliation If Keselowski Wrecks Hocevar

If Brad Keselowski decides he will exact his revenge on Carson Hocevar, following an incident on Lap 107 of last Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway, Jeff Dickerson, the owner of Hocevar's Spire Motorsports team, warned that a war could be sparked between Spire Motorsports and RFK Racing.

In an interview on this week's episode of the Gluckcast, Dickerson threatened that if Keselowski crashes Hocevar to get back at him from their incident at Darlington, that Keselowski can expect one of RFK Racing's Chase-contending cars to get crashed out in retaliation.

"We don't want to get in a crashing cars contest. I mean, they have two cars in the Chase, too. I mean, what are we doing? You know what I mean? It's just like, he wants to dump Carson, so then Carson goes and gets [Chris Buescher]? I'm just saying is there are all of these unwritten rules out there," Dickerson said.

If there were any confusion around Dickerson's veiled threat, Dickerson would reiterate that there will be retribution if Keselowski does something to Hocevar on track during the Chase.

"Chase guys, non-Chase guys. Brad knows these rules, he's wrote them. You know? So, if a non-Chase guy wants to do that, okay then, I guess whatever happens, happens. And it's the same to us. But I can tell you, if Carson is going to get wrecked, there's going to be a commensurate response," Dickerson explained.

If Dickerson went into the interview with Jeff Gluck attempting to shed the notion that Spire Motorsports has "no adults in the room," a suggestion from Denny Hamlin on this week's Actions Detrimental Podcast, I fear his comments on the Gluckcast did nothing but reaffirm Hamlin's assessment.

Not only did Dickerson throw out threats of further retaliation to Keselowski and RFK Racing, but Dickerson also refused to accept blame for the initial incident with Keselowski at Darlington on Hocevar's behalf.

In fact, the team owner suggested that Keselowski was at fault for the incident, despite Hocevar initiating the contact that sent Keselowski spinning out.

"Here's what I wish Carson would have said; let me just kind of tie it all together. We know what Brad was doing on Sunday. Brad knows we know what he was doing on Sunday," Dickerson said. "Alright, and Carson gave him 12 laps of getting out of his system, whatever point he was trying to prove to Carson, right? And back us back -- I don't know if everybody knows this, [Chris Buescher] was behind us, another Chase car. So, that's just part of it, right? And we're not -- you know, but it's just like, Carson doesn't need to wreck anybody. He shouldn't touch anybody, but the way those guys were racing for 12 laps, somebody was going to do something. You know what I mean? And I mean by that, I just mean like somebody was going to make a mistake."

Dickerson says instead of spending laps trying to fend off Hocevar for position, Keselowski should have yielded the position to Hocevar.

"I mean, Brad was sitting on his door, going into the corner. I mean, we're at Darlington, for Christ's sake. I mean, you know, you're racing the racetrack," Dickerson said. "I mean, you know, Carson, who everybody thinks you know doesn't know what he's doing out there is like letting everybody go, except Ty Gibbs, who did it the right way and just shipped him into the corner and was just like, 'Get the hell out of my way,' right?"

Dickerson continued, "Brad can do whatever he wants. If Brad wants to sit on Carson's door and try to suck him around, then cool. Right, if Brad wants to run the hell out of him, awesome. I don't think Carson shies away from, you know, tough racing or hard racing. It's just, yeah, you know, sh-t happens."

These comments from Dickerson come following Keselowski's post-race comments at Darlington Raceway.

After climbing from his No. 6 Ford at Darlington, a visibly frustrated Keselowski said, "[Hocevar's] day is coming, and it's coming hard. Watch out, Carson."

In immediate post-race interviews at Darlington, Hocevar seemingly refused to give more insight as to what occurred between himself and Keselowski on Lap 107, and simply said, "he spun," when asked why Keselowski spun, Hocevar said, "I don't know, he spun."

When Hocevar was told what Keselowski said about his day coming, Hocevar fired back, "I'll tighten my belts."

Earlier this week, in a media Zoom teleconference, Hocevar did finally open up on the incident with Keselowski, and in that call, Hocevar explained that he didn't intend to spin or crash Keselowski out, and that "sh-t happens."

"You know, kinda sh-t happens sometimes when you're racing hard, right?" Hocevar explained. "You know, I think Brad knew how aggressive he was being [while] racing super hard, obviously, trying to keep us behind him. I was racing really hard, trying to be aggressive, just trying, you know, hurt his momentum a lot. And we just got racing really hard, right?"

It remains to be seen if Keselowski will retaliate on Hocevar, but Keselowski, one of the elder statesmen in the sport, has never shied away from conflict throughout his illustrious NASCAR National Series career.

Keselowski has had intense feuds with Carl Edwards, Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch, Jeff Gordon, and others. Most of those feuds came with Keselowski serving as the young up-and-coming driver trying to make a name for himself, like Hocevar is currently attempting to do.

Much like the veterans did on Keselowski's path to NASCAR's biggest stage, Keselowski will likely see this as an opportunity to rein in the, at times, overly aggressive Hocevar. It'll be interesting to follow, and even more interesting to see if Spire Motorsports delivers on their threat of further retaliation if Keselowski does even the score between himself and the driver of the No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet.

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