It was the NASCAR celebration heard around the world, as Carson Hocevar marked his first ever Cup Series win in the most epic fashion.
The 23-year-old phenom from Portage, Michigan just edged out Chris Buescher by 0.114 seconds at the iconic Talladega Superspeedway on Sunday, and boy did he have fun afterwards.
Hocevar, the man they call ‘Hurricane’, lived up to his reputation with a victory lap which wrote a million headlines around the world, and provided a viral moment which will live long in the memory.
The Spire Motorsports star hung out of the window of his No. 77 Chevrolet as he negotiated one final rotation of the famous oval, but after completing his lap he struggled to keep control of his car and eventually crashed into the wall on the frontstretch.
Fortunately, there was no serious damage to the car, and it cleared post-race inspection with no issues, while Hocevar was able to quickly get the incident out of people's minds with another huge burnout after the collision.
Hocevar spoke in detail about the celebration at the postrace press conference, explaining how he’d planned it and how he just about pulled it off.
READ MORE: Hocevar press conference gatecrashed by Cleetus McFarland
Hocevar: Celebration wasn't clean
He admitted: “It wasn’t clean by any means. It took me a while. I don’t know if the TV saw it, but I felt like I was really close to the inside wall and I did not have that steering wheel on, so I was panicking for a second.
“I’ve dreamt about that in the off-season. I just wanted to have something that was meaningful for me. I mean, obviously being a Jr. fan, I remember that iconic clip, he was inside the car, helmet off, enjoying the fans going backwards.
“But the fans, they don’t really get to know if they hear ’em or see ’em and everything. So I had thought of just like, ‘Man, I have really long legs, I wonder if I can hit the throttle and sit on the door and ride, just kind of see everybody’. I just wanted them to get as loud as possible. I felt like they would if they could see me seeing them.”
Carson wanted to soak in every moment
The unique way Hocevar celebrated also had another motive - Carson wanted to be able to see everything that was going on around him, up close and personal. So he could remember it for ever.
“Yeah, I mean, ultimately I just wanted to make sure I soaked every bit of it in. I think I could tell you what everybody was wearing, where every seat was, where every 77 shirt was. I think I could have pointed it all out to you because I remember it so clearly right now.
“That means more than anything else to me, just that I know this has been a blur. I could tell you exactly just off turn four, it was like, I have it, to right now, I could tell you every second.”
How did Hocevar physically make it work?
So we know how Hocevar felt as he did that epic victory lap, but what about the physical logistics? Was he stood up as he drove round hanging out of the window?
“No, I was sitting on the door. I had my left foot… “ he answered.
“What I had to do is I couldn’t get - I couldn’t twist my foot around with the steering wheel on to drop the clutch. I had to drop the clutch with the wheel off.
“So I had the wheel off, I dropped the clutch, and I was hustling to get the wheel on. And I got the wheel on, turned around. So it just kind of idled for me. And then as I felt more comfortable riding on the door, I was just kind of moving the steering wheel a little bit, stayed straight. Then I started giving it gas. Yeah, that’s how I did it.”
'Hurricane' feared a crash
Hocevar admitted that he was worried about how things might end on his night of nights, but when all said and done we can call it a pretty epic success.
“I was really worried about how I was going to hit the wall and do the burnout against it. It wasn’t that hard of a hit. Just burned it down. I wanted to at least burn it down next to the deal. That was the biggest thing. It took me a while to figure out how to do it. Once I did it, I haven’t had a phone, I haven’t seen anything, hopefully it was cool.”
NASCAR TODAY: Hamlin's verdict on shock exit and Cup Series driver hit with Talladega DNQ
