NASCAR legend Kyle Petty has once again warned the sport about the dangers of underestimating Carson Hocevar.

The young Spire Motorsports driver came from the back of the field to claim fourth place at Darlington on Sunday, a run which sent Petty's already obvious enthusiasm into overdrive.

Petty hailed the drive – run in a Dale Earnhardt tribute throwback pain scheme – as 'flipping fantastic', insisting that the sport is going to have to contend with Hocevar sooner rather than later, instead of writing him off as a fast but reckless annoyance.

Hocevar, it should be noted, is yet to win a Cup Series race as he competes in his third full-time season, and is locked into a contract at least into the 2030s for a team that has won one Cup race in its history (Justin Haley at Daytona, in 2019).

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Petty: Whine all you want, Hocevar will win races

Speaking on NASCAR Inside the Race, Petty said: “Hocevar is going to have to be contended with at some point in time. I said it when everyone was whining about him a few weeks ago. Whine all you want to.

"He’s going to come in here and he’s going to take your seconds, he’s going to take your thirds, he’s going to take your fourths and fifths, and he’s going to win some races. He did it in this Earnhardt-esque car, which was just flipping fantastic.

"When I look at Hocevar, and I talked about Reddick being a little bit of a reminder of Cale Yarborough, these are throwback drivers. These guys are changing the sport, they're going to continue to change the sport. I told you, I’ve got my Hocevar lifetime membership. I’m in that fan club. I’m going to the convention."

As well as Hocevar has started the season – with fourth place finishes at Atlanta and Darlington and good pace elsewhere – the 'seconds and thirds' Petty is promising haven't arrived for a little while, with Hocevar's last top-three finish coming 28 races ago.

His talent remains undoubted, but a number of people in the sport would like to see the wins column start to fill up before anointing him the future of NASCAR.

Among those? Hocevar himself, who's had to speak out to calm comparisons to Dale Earnhardt, saying last week: “I don’t even really like the comparison. I mean, I appreciate it obviously, but I feel like we’ve probably should have won a race now."

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