​Well, now what?Who’s next with a suggestion on how to deal with Carson Hocevar?Conventional wisdom in recent weeks and months said someone just needs to introduce him to some frontier justice after he plays a little fast and loose with manners on the track.How’d that work out?Well, gotta say, in the dude universe, there’s nothing worse than going after someone who did you wrong, only to get a whippin’ on top of the original injustice. If it actually was an injustice. Opinions are mixed on what pissed off Ryan Blaney at Bristol late in Saturday night’s race. Should Hocevar have given him a break or not? If it had been anyone other than Hocevar who got into Blaney’s rear bumper, Blaney still would’ve been angry. But it was indeed Hocevar, Public Enemy No. 1 among the drivers union, so Blaney must’ve felt like he was doing the Lord’s work in giving the youngster what-for after the race. Ryan Blaney punches Carson Hocevar. pic.twitter.com/C2xBpKZGAU— Jordan Bianchi (@Jordan_Bianchi) September 20, 2026Unfortunately for Blaney, he instead walked into a couple of overhand rights from a guy with a considerable reach advantage, and ended up on the deck. To Blaney’s credit, he regrouped and delivered a move that would’ve made Barry Sanders proud, working quickly through traffic to find Hocevar and deliver a punch damn-near chin-high. But it landed a tad low, so all we’ll remember is Blaney getting dumped on the track and decked off of it. Oh, and regarding Hocevar, if we didn’t know it already, NASCAR absolutely has an officially christened anti-hero. Bristol has a history of such things, though it had been a while.First Gear: Joey Logano is doing it againWe’ll eventually get back to the Hocevar-Blaney dust-up, but first, breaking news: Joey Logano won another race, and we have a new points leader. Barely. “Well, Merry Christmas to me,” Logano, the three-time Cup champ, told the national audience after his third career Bristol win and third win of 2026.Exactly halfway through the season, Logano finished 24th at Sonoma and was 20th in points. Three weeks later, he finally won a race, for the first time since the spring of 2025. Three weeks later, he won another. And now five weeks later, another. And now Joey is third in points, just 16 points behind the leader. And that leader isn’t Denny Hamlin, but Kyle Larson. Denny is just one point behind Larson, but it feels like more because Denny seems stuck in this back-half-of-the-top-10 streak. Something, or two somethings, happens every week to keep him from winning for the first time since that three-race winning streak in late spring. Seems like a long, long time ago. Clever answer from Joey Logano when asked about coming all the way from 20th in points a few months ago to third and in bona fide championship contention.”It’s been a good comeback. They’ll have to change the points format again.” pic.twitter.com/aXF67V5bVE— Steven Taranto (@STaranto92) September 20,