Looking up at the video board, Ross Chastain was just a race fan in the immediate aftermath of the Bristol Night Race, even if his client was the one involved in a post-race fracas.

Carson Hocevar is represented by Motorsports Management International, which boasts Chastain as one of its ownership members, but the Trackhouse Racing veteran did not have a role to play that night.

That was all in the hands of his MMI partner, Phillip Smalley, and the public relations team at Spire Motorsports.

“In that moment, I’m just a fan,” Chastain told Motorsport.com after Cup Series practice and qualifying was rained out at Kansas Speedway. I saw Smalley and the group at Spire was there before (Ryan) Blaney even got there.

“From what I understand, Carson was warned, and that was good. In my experience, that's what I need. I need to get out of the car -- and keep in mind I am one-sided and only have one view of what happened -- so I need someone else to talk to me and prepare me for the grasp of what’s going on when I’m climbing out of the car.

“We've been sitting in a hot oven for three to four hours, very focused on winning and now, okay, now it's time to switch gears.”

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But again, even though Chastain has a vested interest in Hocevar, he had no role to play in how Blaney and Hocevar dealt with their incident in the closing laps of that race.

“Our goal at MMI is to help him be the best version of himself he can be,” Chastain said. “And I think they're doing a great job. I don’t know how you could have handled this week any better -- and that’s a testament to Spire and MMI.

“I just watched from afar. I'm just a race fan. I got out of the car and I looked up at Colossus and watched with everybody else and was a race fan watching.”

In some ways, Chastain can relate to Hocevar because he was perceived in a similar light by his peers and the community at large. And Hocevar once drew the ire of Chastain at Atlanta last spring too.

“I was seeing red,” Chastain said of that night. “I just could not believe that he shucked me out of the way and split the middle. I just could not believe that. He changed the tone of how we race. I’m not looking at being owed anything but he made a big decision that day and just set the tone for how we race each other.”

Ultimately, Chastain said Hocevar is his own person, and it’s a different approach than what had him at the center of various controversies several seasons ago.

“I think he's his own person, a twentysomething-year-old man that is doing it his way and he's got Spire and his group that supports him,” Chastain said. “He's taken the speed I had, I can tell you that. It's amazing how different it is whenever I can't keep up with him.

“I can't continue to race with him and with the other cars that I used to race with right now. We’ve taken a step forward and I’m sleeping much better right now because of that, but when you can’t keep up, that was a little frustrating.

“I couldn’t wreck Carson if I wanted to. I couldn’t keep up with the guy this season. Again, we’re taking that next step, and when we take another one, it’s going to be a lot of fun racing with him and those other guys we used to race.”

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- The Motorsport.com Team