Kalamazoo Tornado with Nascar's Carson Hocevar

Driving Vision Podcast with Sam D'Arc

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 Sam Darc: Welcome everyone to the Driving Vision Podcast brought to you by the Zeigler Auto Group. And here with me, Auto Group Director of Talent Development, Mike Van Ryn. Welcome, Mike. Hey. Thanks, Sam. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast. Like it if you do, and leave a comment. Carson Hocevar: 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. Sam Darc: Hey, everybody out there, including team Ziegler. I'm here with NASCAR race car driver, Ziegler sponsored spire number 77, Carson Hocevar. Carson, welcome. Carson Hocevar: Yeah. Thanks, Sam. I appreciate having me on once again. Sam Darc: Carson, it's always so much fun to have you on this show, and you're so important to the Zeigler 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. Carson Hocevar: 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. Sam Darc: There was Carson Hocevar: 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, Sam Darc: you Carson Hocevar: 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 Sam Darc: 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 ...