Bubba Wallace on exchange with Carson Hocevar following Michigan race

The driver of the No. 77 Chevrolet for Spire Motorsports has been labeled too aggressive reckless and unapologetic. He’s earned some great finishes including a win at Talladega earlier this year and a fifth place finish Sunday at Michigan in the FireKeepers Casino 400 but it hasn’t helped the 23 year old make many friends in the garage.

Bubba Wallace’s No. 23 Toyota was nearly wiped out in a multi-car crash on Sunday thanks to Hocevar’s move, but Wallace escaped serious damage.

Hocevar drove into the rear of John Hunter Nemechek’s No. 42 Toyota out of a restart on the 83rd lap, spinning him into the field. Nemechek got into Wallace, who then got into Ty Gibbs, who then sent Wallace's 23XI Racing teammate and Cup Series points leader Tyler Reddick into the wall. It started a chain reaction. In the chaos Reddick’s No. 45 Toyota slid down the track and was hit by Austin Dillon’s No. 3 Chevrolet. The wreck took Reddick and Dillon out of the race, marking Reddick's first DNF of the season. "“Man, I hope someday (Hocever) figures it out,” Dillon said after leaving the infield care center. “I'm mad because we had a fast race car.”

Both Wallace and Hocevar would go on to finish strongly. Wallace recorded his best finish of the season with a third-place finish while Hocevar a Michigan native finished fifth at his home track. Both jumped up in the point standings Hocevar moving up to seventh Wallace now in 11th inside the cut line for the postseason.

Both drivers got out of their cars on pit road and Wallace pulled Hocever aside, where they had an animated and apparently tense conversation sitting on the pit wall. Wallace told Prime Sports what he told the young driver.

“I said, ‘I’m jealous of how quick you are, kid.Of course, he's one of the quickest in the business, and that's just natural ability. And so when you see that and you know that, I gotta give respect to it,” Wallace said. “But at the same time — Kevin Harvick told me, I don’t know, whenever I was hitting (expletive) four or five years ago, he said, ‘Stop hitting (expletive) and your finishes will show. And that's what I was just tryin' to tell him, man.”

In layman’s terms, the 32-year-old Wallace thinks Hocevar would be in more winning positions if he’d exhibit more control and restraint behind the wheel.

"He's quick, he goes for every move every second and it's not worth it. He's making a lot of enemies. “It’s the same old story, same old Hocevar,” Wallace said. “But I just told him, ‘You’re fast, a lot of us are jealous of what you have and what you’re able to do and we’re beating you because we can put a race together better than you.’”

Earlier this season, NASCAR legend Richard Petty compared Hocever to another all-time great, Dale Earnhardt, stating, “Boy, that 77, he’s got his time. There’s a lot of things he’s getting away with or doing that aren’t really that bad. If I go back and watch him run and stuff, he reminds me of Dale Earnhardt." Earnhardt learned to get by with that stuff. Earnhardt never made no friends either, OK?

Dale Earnhardt Jr. has said similar things, saying Hocevar's style reminds him of his dad's early years in the sport.

Existing drivers may not be happy but they’re probably not endeared by Hocevar’s throwback style either.

When asked about his interaction with Hocevar, Wallace told reporters, “He’s going to pay for mistakes and he hasn’t realized that yet. I was pissed off. He’s playing the game… Just stop hitting (expletive) you can race to your potential