“We’re here to win races, not be in a boy band.” These were Carson Hocevar’s words after terrorizing the field and notching a career-best 2nd-place finish in the Cup Series race at Atlanta. The Spire Motorsports #77 slid Ryan Blaney up during a Turn, slid Kyle Busch up the track on multiple occasions, and even nudged Christopher Bell up the track to ruin his fellow Chevrolet, Kyle Larson’s, chances of a win while in pursuit of his own. The talent is certainly there with Hocevar, and after a solid run at Charlotte last week, Dale Earnhardt Jr. pointed out what the #77 needs to do to succeed at NASCAR’s highest level.At Charlotte, Hocevar’s car was a rocket ship. He started at the back of the pack and drove himself up the track, and was competing for the lead along with William Byron and Denny Hamlin. Unfortunately, his #77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet had other ideas and his engine blew up during a restart, as a frustrated Hocevar radioed, “It f—– blew up!”. Such misery has dominated a sophomore season filled with speed, and Dale Jr. believes he isn’t far away from translating this speed into consistent results.Dale Earnhardt Jr. imparted some advice to the young driverIn a conversation with journalist Jordan Bianchi on the Dale Jr. Download, the veteran spoke about the young driver. Junior put Hocevar among a special group of drivers. Ones who don’t necessarily have the fastest car, but find a way to bring speed to the racetrack consistently. This has been a theme of Hocevar’s season as he has willed his way to the top 10 on many occasions, and even won the pole at Texas. However, it’s his behavior that has let him down so far, and Junior feels it’s the only thing holding him back.Dale Earnhardt Jr. said on the Dale Jr Download, “He [Hocevar] has something special. There’s good race car drivers, there’s great race car drivers, and then there’s some drivers who have some supernatural knack for just being fast. Some guys have this raw speed that most can’t compete with. He has to get the rest of it tied together, his attitude, personality, he’s energetic, a bit all over the place. Once he hones that in, the field better look out, because his ability to really just be quick and run fast is very rare. There’s not many people in this sport, honestly feel like he could really, really shine over the next several years when he puts it all together.” Carson Hocevar’s ‘all over the place’ nature was reflected during that run at Texas Motor Speedway.Hocevar was charging in the top 10 and then aggressively tried to overtake RFK Racing’s #60 Ryan Preece, and ended up shoving him into the wall as both of them wrecked. The #77 had top-10 and arguably top-5 speed that day, but ruined it with his driving nature. Even Ryan Preece was frustrated with the sophomore, saying, “Just got ran into the fence by somebody that has no respect for his equipment or anybody else’s equipment, or anybody else who is out there. He’ll have his day.”While Preece and Hocevar seemed to have made up after the incident, with Preece saying that Hocevar apologized to him before the next race at Kansas, the fact remains that Carson needs to cool it down. To be fair to the sophomore, he did just that at Charlotte, driving a clean race until the race-ending engine failure.This is why Dale Jr believes that if he can learn from his mistakes and hone his skills, he can be a force to be reckoned with. He even predicted that, given time, Carson Hocevar could become a diamond in the rough. However, while Hocevar’s potential seems to be limitless, his team might be hampering some of that in 2025.Spire Motorsports needs to shoulder some blameNASCAR insider Jordan Bianchi agreed with Dale Earnhardt Jr, but made his own observations as well. According to him, part of the fault lies with the team as well. “They’ve [Spire Motorsports] had a lot of speed, they have performance, but what they do not have is results. They have a hard time putting a race together from the green flag to checkered flag,” said Jordan Bianchi.A prime example is the Cup race at Bristol Motor Speedway, where Hocevar finished 11th. Although the final result did not reflect the run he had. Carson Hocevar was really quick on the track, and once again had top-5 to top-10 speed on a day where passing looked more difficult than it ever has on short tracks. Unfortunately, he was hampered by a pit road issue that cost him a bunch of positions, and he struggled to claw his way back up.At least he is not alone in his struggles, as teammate Michael McDowell has not boasted of a good end product. McDowell almost put together a race-winning drive at Texas this year, only to get ousted on restarts by Joey Logano and eventually Ryan Blaney before he spun out of the race. That might not be directly down to Spire, but it shows that they clearly have the speed, but lack the strategy to finish good runs.With the season entering its summer stretch, Hocevar will be looking to capitalize on some momentum gained from a strong showing at Charlotte. Do you think Spire Motorsports will win a race in 2025? Let us know in the comments!The post Dale Earnhardt Jr. Calls Out Carson Hocevar’s Only Obstacle to NASCAR Greatness appeared first on EssentiallySports.