NASCAR race winner Carson Hocevar stepped in to host an extended edition of the Dale Jr Download podcast this week, and things went...about as well as expected.

The Spire Motorsports star was in fine form throughout, at one point taking a call from Earnhardt Jr. and chastising him for interrupting the show, before airing out one of a few grievances he has with aspects of the sport.

One that he spent a few minutes on is the coverage of young prospects Jesse Love and Connor Zilisch, who went head-to-head for the Xfinity Series title in 2025 and who will resume their rivalry full-time in 2027 when Love joins Zilisch as a full-time Cup Series driver.

As well as being two of the brightest young drivers in the sport, Zilisch and Love are – famously – very close friends. While Hocevar doesn't have any problem with the friendship itself, he warned that the constant references to it in the media make people less likely to take the sport's on-track product seriously.

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Hocevar: Stop telling us Love and Zilisch are friends!

"I wish every TV person would stop saying Jesse Love and Connor Zilisch are the best of friends," he said. "I with they would stop that.

"I know they are, but you don't have to say it in every interview, damn it! They can be friends, but every interview it's like 'what's it like racing your best friend that you go out with every night and do everything with?'

"That's not doing anything to help the sport. All it is is just making the stereotype like 'all the drivers are too close friends, they're not gonna race each other super hard' and everything, I just feel like that's just feeding that even more and now it's feeding it with the next guys in Cup.

"It's cute in O'Reilly, but I hope it doesn't translate to Cup from the TV perspective. They can be friends, and they could talk about it, but the second they're on the racetrack together or the secnod they're in an interview, it's every time.

Told by his co-host/spotter Tyler Green 'we need enemies not friends for good quality racing', he replied "I know! Just put me and Corey Heim on a racetrack and line us up, put us on the front row and just let us go have at it."

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