Carson Hocevar ran a late model this week and said the Gateway Dirt Nationals in St. Louis, Missouri, was fun. The 22-year-old added that the low-tech, seat of the pants style of dirt racing cleared his head.The Spire Motorsports driver has mixed dirt starts into his schedule since his youth. This NASCAR Cup Series off-season outing at Gateway Nationals did not end in a trophy. Hocevar left the Dome with an 11th-place finish and could hold his own against drivers who cut their teeth on clay.During a post-race interview with FloRacing on Friday (December 5) night, Hocevar talked about why he loves dirt racing over pavement."It's just fun to be back here. These are a lot of my NASCAR guys or guys in the shop that grew up doing this that they get to go have fun with Jeff [Dickerson] and then Tim Kloss, everybody here is a lot of fun," Carson Hocevar said."Having real racing or just not a lot of aero or engineering, I'm not looking at laptops and data, and you're looking at flow, try to figure out what lane works everything. So, its just fun to do this. I mean these guys are super good," he added.Friday night at the Gateway Dirt Nationals served up chaos and a big payday when Ricky Thornton Jr. won the late-model main for $10,000. Hocevar battled through a transfer race. He also spun and brought out a caution with nine laps remaining.The Portage, Michigan native was to add more dirt races on his schedule, but said that mid-week events do not clash with his NASCAR calendar. He specifically named Eldora Speedway as a track he would like to race at again.Carson Hocevar called out the NASCAR blame game for being unable to increase popularityCarson Hocevar believes the playoffs make NASCAR confusing. He wants races to matter all season. During 12 Questions with The Athletic's Jeff Gluck in October, Hocevar argued that NASCAR should go back to a full-season points system instead of its playoff structure."A full-season points format would help. ... Right now, it feels like the whole sport is in a finger-pointing challenge: the networks, teams, drivers, NASCAR, everyone's fighting for their margin of it while the total pool of funds gets smaller. As you're bleeding, you're not (addressing) the wound," Carson Hocevar said."There are people who want to become fans because they see the racing, but it’s very difficult for them. They have to try really hard to push through to (understand the formats and points)," he added.Hocevar earned his first career Cup Series pole at Texas Motor Speedway in Spire Motorsports' No. 77 car. The 2024 Cup Rookie of the Year also collected two second-place finishes at Atlanta and Nashville, with seven other top-10s.