Zane Smith Slams Carson Hocevar on the Cool-Down Lap at Phoenix

Zane Smith crossed the finish line 15th at Phoenix Raceway on Sunday, then went looking for Carson Hocevar. He found the No. 77 on the cool-down lap and drove into the back of it hard, after the checkered flag, in a hit caught on video posted by NASCAR reporter Noah Lewis. SI’s Racing America report calls it a seeking mission. The replay of the incident Smith was answering for tells a more awkward story: the driver he hit had been pushed into him.

The contact came in the closing laps of the Freeway Insurance 500. Smith was running eighth, Hocevar’s car arrived from behind, and Smith’s possible top-ten finish became 15th. Hocevar finished 12th. Smith’s team relayed the explanation, that Hocevar had been shoved into his car. His answer, per SI and Heavy from Lewis’s video, was five words: “I don’t give a f---.”

Who actually started the contact Smith was answering for?

On the reports, Ross Chastain. With about 15 laps to go after the final restart, Smith was running eighth at the back of the top ten, with Josh Berry close behind him. Chastain hit Hocevar from behind, Hocevar slid up the track into the side of Berry’s car and into the back of Smith’s No. 38, and all three lost ground in one moment. SI and Joseph Srigley both give that sequence from the replay, and the results sheet supports the cost: Chastain finished ninth, Berry 11th, Hocevar 12th and Smith 15th.

Heavy’s report is more careful about the first contact and says its precise circumstances remain unclear, and this article keeps the sequence attributed for that reason. What is not in dispute is the order of what happened next. The explanation reached Smith from his own team before the cool-down lap. He was told, and he went anyway. Srigley adds that Smith’s spotter warned the Front Row Motorsports crew to be by the two cars in case anything else started. Nothing else did: Hocevar sped past several cars on pit road, which put distance between the two before the interview bullpens, per SI.

Why do Smith and Hocevar keep meeting like this?

The feud predates Phoenix. SI notes Smith pulled the curtain back on it in a Racin’ with the Boys interview earlier this season, and Jayski’s team coverage records that the two remained at odds after a meeting with NASCAR officials at Atlanta. Hocevar collects these files. This site covered Brad Keselowski’s verdict that Hocevar causes intentional accidents four days ago, and Phoenix was the second straight week with post-race contact in the Cup Series, after the McDowell and Stenhouse argument at Charlotte.

Sunday’s race had already produced its share before the cool-down lap. Riley Herbst dumped Michael McDowell in Stage 1 and wrecked himself doing it, and Kyle Larson’s crash cut his Chase lead from 49 points to five. The Smith hit was the third incident of the day, and the only one that happened after the racing was over. That distinction is the whole file.

What did the Charlotte precedent price a cool-down clash at?

Nothing, and that comparison now sits underneath this one. A week earlier at Charlotte, Michael McDowell and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. clashed on the cool-down lap after the Bank of America 400, and NASCAR gave both drivers no penalty, a decision this site covered with the three conditions NASCAR’s spokesman set out: window nets up, no wall contact, no third car involved. Smith’s Phoenix hit differs on the fact that matters most. The Charlotte clash grew out of the racing itself. Smith’s was a payback for contact his own team had just told him was not Hocevar’s fault.

Can NASCAR penalize a hit that happens after the flag?

Yes, and the weekly penalty report is where it would land. NASCAR reviews post-race conduct as part of its standard weekly process, and a deliberate hit on a cool-down lap, delivered at speed on a lap where other cars are slowing, is the category of act the report exists to price. No ruling had been announced in Sunday night’s coverage, so this page makes no prediction about the outcome. The strongest fact in Smith’s favour is timing: the explanation reached him after the damage, in a car, at the end of a race he had just lost ground in. The strongest fact against him is his own sentence, recorded on video, before the hit.

What happens next for the feud?

Talladega, on Sunday, October 25, where the field runs in one drafting pack and avoiding a driver is not really an option. Three races remain in the Chase, and neither Smith nor Hocevar is carrying a points lead into it, which usually lowers the temperature. The history points the other way: an Atlanta meeting with officials did not end this, a Charlotte-style no-penalty week taught the garage that cool-down contact can go unpriced, and Smith has now said on the record, in effect, that explanations do not move him. If NASCAR’s report prices the Phoenix hit, that is the update this page is waiting for.