Joey Logano said what nobody else will admit about Carson Hocevar

Another week, another slew of headlines featuring the name "Carson Hocevar" across the internet within NASCAR circles (and, in some cases, even in the mainstream).

This time, it was due to a fight on pit road with Ryan Blaney after Saturday's playoff race at Bristol Motor Speedway, stemming from contact between the two drivers on the race track which ultimately knocked Blaney out of the race.

The irony is that the contact itself was probably more Blaney's fault than Hocevar's, and Blaney, who initiated the fight by grabbing Hocevar before Hocevar punched back, admitted a few days later that Hocevar was not only right to defend himself but was not fully at fault for the incident like he had initially believed.

But perhaps the most important part of Hocevar's night is what everybody seems to be overlooking, and it's the fact that in a battle for the win between himself and Ty Gibbs, the winner was none other than Joey Logano.

Joey Logano points out the obvious, yet everyone is ignoring it

Hocevar's overaggressive driving style has ruffled some feathers; that's not exactly a secret. While Blaney's anger may have been misplaced, there are about 20 other drivers (if not more) who have a legitimate bone to pick with the driver of the No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet.

Yet nobody ever seems to actually do anything about it, and for as much as some folks like to insist that it's going to come back to bite him, he is rarely ever in position to win a race as it is. You'd have to imagine he wouldn't be too upset getting crashed out of 18th place. It would probably make for a fun t-shirt idea.

But on Saturday, he was in the catbird seat to pull off the victory. And lo and behold, Ty Gibbs wasn't going to let it happen.

Gibbs drove Hocevar so hard in the closing laps that he ended up costing himself a shot at the win as well. But more importantly, at least in a vacuum, it cost Hocevar a chance to win.

Yet all anybody wants to talk about is the Hocevar-Blaney fight, the consistently overblown narrative that Hocevar is "saving the sport" by having a personality and paying no mind to what others think of him, and how his merch sales are up again this week.

Absolutely nobody seems to be talking about the real elephant in the room, relating to the actual race result.

Except Logano.

"Hocevar probably wins that race if he doesn't have the reputation he has," Logano said. "I feel like that's a fact. Ty Gibbs went in there and straight-up punted him. Why? I would assume it's different if it's somebody else. He probably would have won that race."

Yes, Logano admitted it's an assumption on his part. But it's a pretty safe one. While Gibbs' infamous water bottle toss was sort of laughed off, it's not hard to imagine that Gibbs too is fed up with Hocevar, and perhaps that was a less-than-subtle way of reminding him who ultimately kept him out of victory lane.

Perhaps it was even confirmation of what Logano is saying. If it were somebody else, the result, and what led to it, might have been different.

If Hocevar ends up in another battle for the win at some point between now and the end of the season, don't be at all surprised if somebody else roughs him up too.

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