NASCAR star Bubba Wallace 'didn't mean' to wreck Carson Hocevar at Martinsville

NASCAR star Carson Hocevar is no stranger to being involved in a wreck, but at Martinsville Speedway on Sunday, things were different this time around.

On this occasion, the Spire Motorsports star was the victim, not the aggressor, with that honor instead going to 23XI star Bubba Wallace.

Wallace turned Hocevar's No. 77 Chevrolet in stage three, causing significant damage to both cars, and it looked no mistake given that it came after multiple bumps from the No. 23.

Wallace's car was so wrecked that he was forced to park up in the garage as a result, while Hocevar went on to finish 17th.

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Bubba Wallace on Carson Hocevar wreck

Post-race, however, Wallace claimed that he hadn't intended to turn him, although he did state that he wasn't happy with Hocevar going three-wide just before the incident occurred.

“I misjudged,” Wallace told the FS1 broadcast. “I didn’t appreciate the three-wide into [Turn] 1.

"But I misjudged the center of the corner and didn’t mean to turn him.”

NASCAR insider analysis

Naturally, it was one of the big talking points post-race, and former NASCAR driver Kyle Petty believes it could have come due to some pent-up frustration on Wallace's part.

“I've been wrecked, and I've wrecked,” Petty said, drawing on his own experiences on Inside The Race. “And it is frustration.

“And Bubba has a little bit of double frustration, I’m gonna say this, because you're getting beaten, you're getting banged on, you're not having the day you want to have, and the whole time we’ve talked about this year, we talk about 23XI and Tyler Reddick, and ‘Oh yeah Bubba’s having a good year’, ‘Oh yeah Bubba had another decent run’, Oh yeah and Bubba.

“Internally, you race your teammates, I don’t give a rat's rear end what anybody says, you race your teammates, you want to be top of the heap, King of the hill in your own team, and I think there’s some frustration and some pent-up anger in that when you get into it.”

Hocevar an 'easy target'

“Hocevar is an easy target right now,” Petty continued. “You can almost wreck Hocevar, and everybody says, ‘Well, that’s just Hocevar. He had that one coming.’

"But in this case, I don’t think Hoecvar had this coming, man. Taking you three-wide at Martinsville is not cause for what we’re seeing right here on the screen.”