Freddie Kraft warns Corey Day is earning a reputation like Carson Hocevar: 'Flip that script'

Two weeks into the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, Corey Day is already developing quite the reputation out on the track. He’s been involved in multiple wrecks.

It took just five laps for Day to get involved in contact at Atlanta that ended the day for multiple other drivers. Day forced things three-wide early on, drawing the ire of Ryan Sieg and other drivers.

This week, Freddie Kraft, a host on the Door Bumper Clear podcast and a NASCAR spotter, offered some advice to Corey Day. He didn’t pull any punches.

“I think the biggest thing for him is he’s going to have to work,” Kraft said. “He’s getting the same reputation that Carson (Hocevar) kind of has, where — reckless. You know what I mean? And now you’re, it takes, you’ve got to get on the other side of that in a hurry.”

Corey Day’s willingness to initiate contact with other drivers, either through willful intent or poor judgment of spacing, has become an early staple of his full-time tenure in NOAPS. That could be dangerous for him down the road.

Kraft explained that once you’ve got a reputation, it can be hard to come back from. And it literally influences how other cars interact with you on the track.

“He’s got plenty of support from behind,” Kraft said. “Nobody’s going to fire him next week because he’s making mistakes. But you’re going to get raced differently if you continue to let this stuff happen. So I feel like you’ve got to flip that script and turn it around and figure out how to start getting the respect back of the guys you’re racing with.”

Last week, Sieg was fuming that Corey Day attempted to force the issue in Lap 5. That kind of stuff just can’t happen. There’s a time and place for aggression.

Tommy Baldwin Jr., a co-host on Door Bumper Clear, suggested that Day is still learning. He just needs to accelerate that learning curve.

“Yeah, I mean he just needs to slow it down a little,” Baldwin said. “But he’s got really fast cars. Just needs to take his time and understand that this is more of a team effort, right? Sprint car, right, you’ve got to go 30 laps, you’ve got to make it happen. Well this pit strategy, another change you can make on a pit stop, there’s things that can help you advance in track position from a pit stop. Once he grasps the whole concept, I think his talent will take him.”