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Ricky Stenhouse Jr. issues ominous threat to Carson Hocevar ahead of Pocono

Nick Profile Picby: Nick Geddes06/22/25NickGeddesNews
Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
Peter Casey-Imagn Images

The Ricky Stenhouse Jr.–Carson Hocevar conflict is far from over. Though the two spoke after their incident at Nashville Superspeedway, seemingly squashing the issue, Hocevar once again dumped Stenhouse in last Sunday’s race in Mexico City.

Stenhouse told Hocevar after the race, “I’m going to beat your ass when we get back to the States.” That hasn’t happened, but Stenhouse isn’t letting off the gas when it comes to threatening Hocevar. He said Saturday that when the time is right, Hocevar will get his receipt.

“Honestly, tired of talking about the kid,” Stenhouse told Dustin Long of NBC Sports. “Eventually, it will come to a head. In the right place in the right time, eventually. We’ll cross that bridge when we get there, but he probably will be looking over his shoulder for a long time. We’ll see how that goes.”

Of course, we have a race on Sunday. It’s the 17th NASCAR Cup Series race of the season, and Pocono Raceway is the place. It’s the first opportunity for Stenhouse to get payback on Hocevar on the racetrack. Stenhouse is, however, fighting for his playoff life.

Just a few weeks ago, Stenhouse sat above the cutline. That’s gone after the incidents with Hocevar. Stenhouse has finished 20th or worse in his last three starts and is now 21st in the points standings. Obviously, his main focus is winning one of the next nine races. It’s essentially his only hope at becoming playoff bound.

Carson Hocevar expecting payback from Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

The same is true for Hocevar, who is one spot ahead of Stenhouse in the standings. But the scorecard in this rivalry is 2-0 in favor of Hocevar. He’s expecting Stenhouse to fire back.

“The scorecard has it that I’m getting something from the 47 at some point, right?” Hocevar said. “And I think my team and everybody kind of knows that. But at the same time, it’s ideally just the 47, right? It’s not an open hunting season on the 77 because of these incidents. It’s kind of oscillated to when the 47 has a moment that he wants to take at us or take a shot, it’s just like — OK, that’s probably fair. But with everybody else, my team has reassured me that this isn’t open hunting season. We are going to race like we’ve raced; let’s just not create more enemies that we start getting shots back at us.

“But we’re still just going to go race, be aggressive and defend ourselves when we need to. But this is, unfortunately, now a 2-0 scorecard. I’ve been a fan of the sport for a long time. You know the game; you’ve seen it and everything. But we just go race.”