Kalamazoo Tornado with Nascar's Carson Hocevar

And unfortunately, the house is behind us. You know, the roofs got ripped off and, you know, the side of buildings of next door and

Welcome everyone to the Driving Vision Podcast brought to you by the Zigler Auto Group. And here with me, Auto Group Director of Talent Development, Mike Van Ryn. Welcome, Mike. Hey. Thanks, Sam.

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Hey, everybody. NASCAR Cup Series driver, Carlos Svar, born and raised in Portage, Michigan. Super proud and super thankful to partner with Drive For Life and the Ziegler Auto Group to come together and raise some funds for the most recent tornado event in Portage, Michigan. We'll be at the Ziegler Motorsports location on Wednesday, 6:30 PM on June 5th coming up shortly to help raise some funds for the people that need it, that were affected. So be sure to come out, and, we'll have a lot of fun and raise some money for charity, but also to give away a lot of things of myself, but also good times as always.

Hey, everybody out there, including team Ziegler. I'm here with NASCAR race car driver, Ziegler sponsored spire number 77, Carson Hocevar. Carson, welcome.

Yeah. Thanks, Sam. I appreciate having me on once again.

Carson, it's always so much fun to have you on this show, and you're so important to the Zigler Auto Group and things we do out there in the NASCAR world that it's fun to catch up with you every every once in a while. And we have something kind of new and different to talk about. So since we last talked, a a crazy unfortunate terrible event happened locally, in your hometown, which happens to be also where our corporate offices are located in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Of all things, a tornado touchdown, not just 1, but they say 3 or 4 super strong tornadoes. And and, it hit really your hometown.

Tell us what you know about what happened and and how it impacted you and your family.

Yeah. I mean, it was, it's tough for me because I'm I wasn't there. I was obviously in North Carolina. Yeah. Just done with a simulator session, got home, and had a few tweets about it, you know, hoping that I was staying safe or hoping that I was not in Portage of my hometown.

Right? So I was like, man, you know, this is, you know, I'm I'm you know, so I called my mom and, you know, I I I called her and was on the phone and and she, you know, just was getting out of the basement. She's like, oh, hey. You know, we just got a tornado and, you know, tornado watch and everything. The sun's out now and everything's all good, and she's like, oh, your dad's called me just to make sure everything's alright.

But, yeah, we're fine. And then I got a a callback right away from mom, and I'm like, okay. Well, I know she at least talked to dad. Right? Because, what I might mean, it's you know, it started to scare me a little bit.

Got on the phone and, you know, my our family business on West Edge got hit, pretty hard, you know, and and and then it started to realize the severity of it. Now all of a sudden, I'm checking Twitter nonstop. You know, I'm looking up, you know, Portage online, you know, just trying to find everything. You know, I'm calling all my buddies and, you know, how I you know, the cell service was knocked out. I'm I'm sure for most everybody in Portage, but I know, my family was struggling to get ahold of me, and I was struggling to get ahold of them with all the cell service.

So I hadn't seen any video, and, unfortunately, the house is behind us. You know, the roofs got ripped off and, you know, the side of buildings of next door, and our, you know, our roof have, you know, got really torn up. And I'm like, what do you mean? Like and obviously, mistranslation, you know, as far as I was concerned, all the windows were blown out. My dad's truck's upside down, and, you know, the gutters completely, you know, miles away, and the roof's completely open.

So I'm freaking out now because I'm like Yeah. Like, you know, I I don't know what's real, what's not. And, unfortunately, fortunately, I was on the phone with my buddy, and he's watching the news and saw it and, you know, sent me a video of it and and, you know, luckily, it was everything was alright. Most importantly, everything was safe, and, you know, they started rebuilding and everything. But, you know, for me, it was scary at first.

You know, as humans, right, we're we're Yeah. Cared for our family first. But but then too, you start to see other pictures of, you know, the FedEx building and and all these other buildings and and businesses. I know that pizza place, the local pizza shop, and, you know, they're just things ripped from the ground, that you wouldn't even know. I showed a handful of pictures to my team, and they you know, me, I know there was a building there, but they, you know, they're looking at it and they're like, what what's different?

I was like, there used to be a building. And There was something there.

There was

something there. And, that that that part was the most wild. You know, I looked into it for a while, and it doesn't seem like there was any really reported deaths or anything No. Which obviously was right and truly a miracle. I mean, the e 4, but obviously, a lot of local businesses, a lot of, you know, a lot of, you know, people's lives were affected regardless of injury.

Right? You know, a lot of families and and relatives, I'm sure, to these families are, you know, definitely hurting. That, you know, it's it's it's a tough loss for the whole community, but luckily, it seems like everybody was able to stay safe and seek shelter. And and ultimately, right,

you

know, these buildings, you know, either held up really well or they collapsed or struggled in the right spots. Right? You know? Yeah. But but just shocker.

I've never had to do that growing up. You know, Michigan's not I don't feel like a tornado type of type

There usually aren't tornadoes. Yeah. You have to go back decades to the last tornado, and it hit downtown Kalamazoo. Did some significant damage back then, but to have 3 touchdown the way it did that night, a couple weeks ago is just astounding. I I was at a workout when the sirens went off, and somebody walked into our workout.

They're like, what do you do? What do we do? And everybody in the room were all like, well, let's just keep working out. So we finished the hour session and, and then I went back to my apartment at Greenspire, which which the tornado ripped right through there and was just astounded at, like, all the trees and the damage and limbs and trees through, you know, roofs and roofs gone. They had a brand new building at at Greenspire where it actually took the entire roof off.

And I'll tell you, Carson, one of the things that is so impressive about this community, you think about Kalamazoo, you think about Portage and just the people that live here. Everybody came together in an instant so quickly to help. Like, there were people cutting down trees and wood chipping and guiding traffic and trying to make sure people didn't touch power lines minutes after the storm. And then as I'm trying to get into the apartment, this is about 20 minutes probably after it struck, The the tornado alarms went off again, and cops said, hey. You gotta get back inside.

It's coming back again. And or or I guess another tornado was about to touch down, and I think there was another one that may have, touched down after that. So just unprecedented in terms of weather. And thankfully, nobody died, but a lot of property damage. And it it was so cool, Carson.

Props to you and your team. Instantly after, this happened, your team reached out to us and said, hey. We'd love to help the the community somehow. Carson lives there. His parents live there.

You know, we wanna help. And it's interesting. A few days after that, the the the county entity that's in that works through the cleanup with Kalamazoo, they reached out and said, hey. You have this connection with Carson. He's a NASCAR guy.

He's somebody everybody loves in Kalamazoo and wants to see and meet and get an understanding of his success, do you think Carson would do something with us? And I'm like, yeah. Heck yeah. So we aligned with the charity and, Carson, we are pumped to have you as a guest. Wednesday, June 5th beginning 6:30 pm Eastern at our motorsports store.

And, we're gonna raise some money to help those that were impacted by these storms. You know, it's interesting. A lot of this is covered by insurance. Right? So insured homes that got flattened trees and went through roofs and whatnot.

But but, as you talk to the county and the emergency folks, there's a lot that's not covered. So trees on property may not be covered. There's a lot of homes. I was really surprised to talk to the emergency management folks to find out the large percentage of homes that are uninsured, and then just devastation in that, mobile home park that it hit kind of towards the end of its path. And so we're super grateful to you that you're gonna come out and join us.

What what it's gonna be fun to be back at Motorsports. You haven't been there since, since we made the announcement, last fall. So what are your thoughts about coming to Kalamazoo for this, charity event and to raise some funds to benefit people impacted by the tornado?

Yeah. I mean, I'm excited. Right? You know, I I wanted to reach out right away. You know, I called my, team that kinda handles the behind the scenes for me.

I was like, hey. Like, I really wanna do something. I'm I'm sure, you know, as generous and as as connected as Zigler Auto Group, right, and team Zigler is to the, you know, Portage and Kalamazoo community. I was just saying, like, hey. I'm I'm sure they're gonna wanna do something.

You know, let's let's just go at this head on together and, you know, everybody just wants to help and and it's super cool to drive for Kalamazoo County's tornado relief. Right? You know, they they came to you the same thing. Right? Like, we all 3 wanted to do something, and all 3 had the same idea.

And, you know, they say great minds think alike. Right? And and just you know, they just wanna help people in this community, be because it it it's a little little town that's pretty strong and pretty big. Right? Is that's how I would I like big cities and everything.

And, I mean, truthfully, if I could bring Portage to to North Carolina or bring North Carolina to Michigan, right, just at least the race part with the race shops and everything Yeah. Yeah. It would it would be my my match made in heaven. But, no, I'm excited to do that. Obviously, raise a lot of money, have fun at motorsports, and have a good time.

Obviously, that's gonna be the most important part is raising the money, but also to, it'll be a lot of fun to have a good time and, and do it, right, in in a fun way because I know team Ziggler always knows how to have a good time.

There's no doubt about that. So you'll be there. You're actually bringing the, ziegler.com wrapped Camaro. So it's a Camaro that looks exactly like the race or the car that you ran at our 1st race there at Talladega. People will get a chance to see that, to get your autograph, get a picture in front of it.

And there's 2 options. You can donate a $100, come to the gala. We'll have appetizers. We'll have a cash bar. Or you can you can donate a couple $100, $200, and you get rights to the 1st die cast cars.

It's, the 1st edition, 1st run die cast cars of the 77ziegler.com car. And, Carson, you you've agreed to, and volunteered to autograph that car, for anyone. And then I think your team is also working on some, silent auction or, open auction items that we can, raffle off to raise money. So I don't know what's in store. I don't know if you have any announcements on that.

That's probably up to Kelly. But, but I know you're bringing some things. Yeah?

Yeah. I'm I mean, we're still looking and and trying to make it alright. I think it'd be more exciting, right, to just see all these things on the table, but, I'm sure, you know, we'll we'll have a lot of fun things and things worth giving rights or or wanting to get. But most most importantly, knowing it's all gonna go to a good cause, right, you know, allows everybody to to really be open and and and give their hard earned money, to to people that really, really need it. Right?

Yeah. Alright. Let's transition away from the tornado, because we'll have time to talk more about that on June 5th. We're excited to see you then. And let's go to this past weekend, the all star race.

Talk to us about the race, how it went. You know, I the headlines for that race are nothing but, the Ricky Stenhouse junior fight. So you've got to tell us a little bit about your perspective on that. But talk talk to us about how you view the race this past weekend.

Yeah. It was good. So they tried, a handful of different things. You know, something really new to NASCAR was, you know, a lot of people are starting to get into f one, right, with that new Netflix series and stuff. And in f one, they have all these different tire compounds, and NASCAR kinda dabbled in it this week, and had 2 different tire compounds.

They had a hard and a soft. So they they did that and tried to just create a little bit different dynamic during the race, but also too, it has a lot of different, you know, unknowns for us. And in practice, I thought we were super fast. We were top 10, top 15, and and feeling really good about our our car, but that was in the heat of the day. There's a lot of rain that came in.

There was 4 inches of rain on Saturday that came in into Wow. Wow. So all rain, cleaned all that rubber off. And and track was just a little different, and, our balance was a little little off that we needed to run top 2, but we ran up to 5th to 6, kinda all day and, you know, felt like we we definitely learned to can take stuff out of it. And, I didn't know how I didn't see the Ricky, you know, fight and whatnot, but it was definitely interesting.

I mean, I I shoot. I mean, every person there within a half mile radius had their iPhone out taking it. So, I mean, they're funny that you could imagine how it would have been being there and standing there because you could find every which angle you you get of that fight.

Yeah. That's pretty unique because family members were involved. Right? And some pretty significant penalties handed down today as of Wednesday, May 22nd.

Yeah. I mean, the biggest thing is there there was so many crew guys involved. You know, NASCAR really steps in once you know, they don't want brawls as the biggest thing, and especially, like, in the garage area. It's hard for them to control. You know, if it was on pit road, I think the penalties probably would be less or whatnot.

I I I obviously don't know. But, you know, I know just for dirt racing, you know, like the Chili Bowl, they have a no fight rule up the ramp, which means no fights in the pit area because they can't control and they can't contain the brawl. They actually have, like, a hockey rule. Like, you know, they they say if you wanna fight, park your car in the front stretch and get out and fight 1 on 1 and we'll once you land on the ground, we'll pick you up and you can be on your merry way. But the second Okay.

The second you fight in the pit area, you're just gonna be banned for life. Like, that's that's their rule. The like like they said, you know, NASCAR is a little different. Right? Low local, you know, huge dirt race, but fans you know, there's very few people that get a VIP pass where, you know, in Chili Bowl or or dirt events, you know, people could get pit passes and whatnot.

And, you know, some drunk fans, some drunk sponsor, You know, anybody can just throw a straight punch, and then their officials are you know, their safety's at risk too. You know? They're trying to pull off. Nobody knows. Nobody realizes they're official.

They swing before they look. And, so I think that's really where NASCAR was was at in their mind of just trying to contain a brawl. You obviously have family members throwing fist at drivers and throwing Right. Crew members put drivers in headlocks. I know that's that's rule number number 1, that crew members cannot cannot get involved unless they're I mean, they basically don't even want you to break it up.

Up. You know, your hands are basically as far up as you can be if you're a crew guy.

Yeah. That's super interesting because from a fan perspective and and maybe you don't want it maybe you shouldn't comment on this. But from a fan perspective, you feel like fighting is a little like, it adds some flavor to the sport and, you know, it's ugly in the moment, but it creates drama, which then leads the news. And I I've always, I guess, kind of assumed that that's not completely discouraged, but but but it's probably not good. I mean, you don't want somebody to get hurt, I guess.

Right? So

Yeah. I mean, I I I mean, in sport, Right? The first race that was televised, there was a fight that instantly went to mainstream. Right? Yep.

I don't want every other sport, but, you know, if NHL has a really good fight, everybody knows about it. Right? Even the NHL fans. There's a bench clearing in baseball. Yeah.

He knows about it. I mean, it just creates a lot of attention. You know, if that happens every week, but last time anybody even threw a fist has been over a year in all c series, trucks, fady cups. So, it's not like it's happening every week. Right?

You know, I'm, you know, watching the NHL game or whatever. And, yeah, I I I wasn't watching NHL, but I watched the the highlights on Twitter because it went viral that they dropped the puck and everybody put their gloves down and the whole lineup just started fighting. Like, all 5 of them. I've never seen anything like that. Right?

And it's just yeah. And I think NASCAR is the same same way. They they really they they probably don't wanna step in, but when it becomes a brawl, I feel like then they're then that's where they they draw the line. You know? If it's Yeah.

If it's kinda 1 on you saw, like, Ross and Noah last year, and there were no penalties there. You know, there's there's different circumstances, and they circumstances, and they they can kinda do what they want. Right? So Yeah. 1.

Well, then So this weekend,

you turned to Charlotte. It's your race. Ziegler.com car. You're back in the Ziegler colors. We're excited to have, you race that car.

What what are your expectations? What what's your take on this weekend's race?

Yeah. I feel good about it. So we've done a lot of sim time in preparing and getting this car right. 600 miles, but there's 4 stages. There's a lot of points on the line.

And and it's huge race. But I mean, more than anything, it's a big day for motorsports with, you know, the Monaco f one race, the Indy 500, and then the coach 6 on that. There's a lot of eyes just on motor sports. So we wanna run really well. And and this, especially at home, everybody wants to run at 1 run well at Charlotte because all your all your crew guys, you know, they get to bring their families out.

This is Memorial Day weekend. There's a lot of ties to to our military. You know, every race car has a, you know, military member on their on their, you know, nameplate and on the windshield. So everybody wants to run really well. And, you know, I've always ran well at Charlotte in in truck and Xfinity growing up in the last few years, and it's really fun racetrack.

You move around a lot, a lot of options. And and 600 miles, that's a lot of rubber, that's a lot of different track conditions, that's a lot of different restarts, a lot of different pit stops to be able to make adjustments. So we feel really confident about our race car and, obviously, wanna give team Ziegler a a really good run that, you know, you know, just starts to push as, you know, I know team Ziggler start you know, this kind of jump starts the the stretch races that we'll have together. So we wanna Yeah. The momentum off right.

Yeah. So in fact, thinking about the next several races, with us. So, Charlotte, May 26th, then we go to Madison, Illinois near Saint Louis. And then we'll actually be with you out of the cup series in Berlin. That's a a Michigan race.

We've got 1 June 12th, 1 August 7th where you'll run a little bit of a different type of car, but with the with the Cup Series colors on it anyway. June 30th, you go to Nashville. We're excited for July 7th over that July 4th week, and in Chicago. Indeed, July 21st. And then, we come home to Michigan at MIS on the 18th, August and then, round out the year, at Homestead.

So there's a lot of racing ahead. It's gonna be a heck of a lot of fun, to to to watch you race. Tell us a little bit about Berlin. What what, what's that all about? That's something some of our Western Michigan, team members will get the opportunity to attend.

Yeah. It'd be a lot of fun. You know, it's just a local local short track that has the facility like a cup racetrack. They actually took the grandstands from 3 and 4. They used to be in the corner from MIS, Michigan International Speedway, and brought them over to Berlin and built suites.

And, you know, they have a lot of connections with NASCAR, you know, Jeff Striegel that, you know, he really takes pride in how that facility is ran and and is a lot of fun. But, you know, there's a big money race, late model that I grew up. I I cut my teeth at Berlin, and, I'm sure a lot of race fans know or have heard about Berlin. It's up in Marne, near Grand Rapids and and a lot of fun. You know, the racetrack's super worn out, super odd.

You know, I always just wonder the story of how these racetracks get designed. Like, are are these accidents that they're are so odd? Are they were they planned? Was they able to just like, yeah. Let's I mean, if you look at it from, you know, from a GPS or satellite or above, you know, there's no straightaway.

It is the weirdest racetrack almost in the country. Makes it really racing and a lot of fun. You know, I'm excited to have team Ziegler, and and and our car our lake model will look exactly like the cup car, really similar to that street Camaro that, teams they go together. So it'd be a lot of fun, but also to, you know, you know, NASCAR Cup series has a lot more responsibilities. Right?

There's a lot more appearances, a lot more introductions, you know, driver a big huge drivers meeting, you know, a little harder to to interact and and engage. And I'm excited for Berlin just because it's, you know, the local level, and, you know, it's a lot more laid back per se that, I think Ziegler was gonna try and get a party deck. So Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. We'll be there both, both dates,

both in June August.

So that'd be great

to have everybody out

and out and have a good time and, you

know, your rate at the racetrack. Right? You know, that party deck is literally rate in turn 2, so a lot of action is right there in your face. So, I'm sure it'll be a lot of fun in team Ziggler. I mean, perfect I mean, just team Ziggler as a whole is a party deck, it seems.

Yes. So right now, it's not gonna have a good time. So, I can only imagine, you know, how how much fun everybody's gonna be having.

We know how to work together. We know how to compete together, and then we know how to celebrate together. And speaking of celebrating and other things that are up and coming, so on 5th of of June, we'll be together at the, Ziegler Motorsports, raising funds for the tornado. But then on 6th, you come with us over to Autobahn in Joliet, Illinois for our, Zigler Technicians President's Club, and we're excited to have you there for that event. There's few auto groups I know of that celebrate their technicians like we celebrate technicians, and you'll be able to drive alongside our top technicians across the Ziegler Auto Group, our 41 rooftops, and they get a chance or a shot at, driving with a Nascar driver.

What what are your thoughts of that event, and what what will that be like for you?

I'm excited. It'd be a lot of fun. Yeah. I'm excited to see everybody. Obviously, you know, technicians in in team Ziegler are are like gold.

They're like crew chiefs. They're like our engineers. You know, they're super valuable. Without them, they don't we don't have a a race car. And and with team Ziggler, right, without those technicians, you don't have a team team Ziggler.

Team Ziggler is not as successful. So, I think it's super cool for this event, what, you know, team Ziggler does for you know, to get back up their employees and and and teammates per se, you know, that I'm excited to do that and excited to have a lot of fun and, outfitting at a at a racetrack of all the places.

Well and and I understand. I I don't I don't know if this is breaking news or not. You may, actually be bringing your girlfriend along with. And I understand she's a driver. So what are the odds we put we put her against you on the track and we have you guys go around a few, laps?

How would that turn out, Carson?

Well, if she's listening, she'd probably win. But, no. So it'd be a lot of fun. Yeah. We actually, Luke, my crew chief, his wife Jamie, and and my girlfriend Peyton, are actually competing in the better half dash next week.

And, you know, so they've been practicing at this Go Kart place right next door

to Nice.

Right to shop. So right at our shop.

She'll kick your butt, man.

And so it's been really fun to see you know, they they bring out the you know, NASCAR has this better app dash, which, you know, everybody's girlfriends or wives of race, you know, crew chiefs, drivers, mechanics, whatever, you know, they get to come race and have a good time, and it's gonna be on Fox and whatnot. So it's been a lot of fun to to teach her. She's a racer herself, late models and everything, but it's fun to just continue to teach her. She, doesn't get to race a whole lot lately just because she had to undergo some cancer treatments and stuff. And, plenty okay now and, just getting through that, but she's a little rusty.

And so that's been a lot of fun to to knock her dust off, and, she's gotten just as fast as me at the go kart track and super competitive. So,

I can only imagine that. The stage to to set the stage at Autobahn, the last event of the day is a race is a go kart, race. So we, tell her tell her to come ready, and we'll put you in a kart, her, and then all the technicians. What what what what what's your prediction? We we put 20 technicians with you and her on on on the course.

You you may need a strategy with the techs to spin her out or or maybe she'll collude with the text to spin you out, and, we'll we'll have some real NASCAR drama at the Autobahn.

I was just saying I was, you know, when it comes to go go karts, I feel like, especially that many, you know, it's only a matter to adult. The winner of it would be the only one that didn't go around at one point. But Yes. But I'm looking forward to it. It'd be a lot of fun.

It already sounds like a lot of fun. I'm already looking forward to it, but, you'll like everything. Team Zinglish finds a way to have a lot of fun, and, I'm enjoying every second of it. So I'm excited to get out there and, especially to the you know, just, you know, between the Autobahn and it sounds like the, you know, the go kart race that you know, there's there's too much fun to be at, I'm sure.

Yeah. No. We're we're we're we will, we'll have a good time. We're excited to bring you have you bring your perspective from NASCAR back to, Portage, Michigan for this, fundraiser and, and then join us in Joliet at the Autobahn to celebrate our technicians the best of. We appreciate your time with us today.

Carson Hozvar, crush it this weekend on the track with the ziegler.com car. Any final, parting messages to team Ziegler and our podcast public, Carson?

Yeah. No. I just, appreciate team Ziegler as always. Hopefully, rep the the colors very well. You know, the warranty cheetah is still on the helmet, so ride I love it.

Loud, this weekend. But more than anything, looking forward to Wednesday, you know, June 5th at at Motorsports and then June 6 over in Illinois. So it'd be a lot of fun. A lot lot of big things coming up and, starts off here at, Charlotte just a couple days.

A big thanks to Carson for contributing to this week's episode. Be sure to join us Wednesday, June 5th at Motorsports for the tornado relief event. Check out the show notes for links to the event. Until next week, how are you driving vision today?