At the end of a windy Saturday (March 4) in Sin City, Georgian Austin Hill passed fellow Peach State native Chandler Smith with two laps to go to claim victory in the Alsco Uniforms 300 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, scoring his second win of the 2023 NASCAR Xfinity Series season and the fourth of his young career.
Smith was well on his way to what would have been a first career win, leading 119 of the 200 laps after starting from the pole, however, with two laps to go, a late charge from Hill meant heartbreak for the 20-year-old.
“I saw the [No.] 16 struggling in traffic,” Hill said to NASCAR on FOX’s Regan Smith after the race. “My spotter Derek [Kneeland] was like, ‘come on baby, you can get it. I saw him get tight off [turn] four, I painted the line, I knew, if I could clear him down the frontstretch … once we got clean air, we could hold him off.”
Hill led initially following the final set of green-flag pit stops, but he couldn’t keep the strong No. 16 Chevy behind for long. Smith passed him for the lead with 54 laps to go, and opened up a truly massive gap on the rest of the field as he easily dispensed with traffic. Only 12 cars finished on the lead lap.
As the run wore on and the cautions stayed away, Hill began to turn the tide, running a smooth low line on both ends of the racetrack and continuously eating into Smith’s lead. Smith moved down to take Hill’s line away, but the No. 16 couldn’t hold the white line, pushing up the track in the center of turns three and four. Hill held steady, zipping by on the bottom to take the lead with two laps remaining.
Smith ended up third behind Justin Allgaier, who recovered from a restart violation to finish second. Kyle Busch, in his first race for Kaulig finished fourth and Josh Berry fifth after a mid-race spin.
Last week’s winner John Hunter Nemechek finished sixth recovering from a loose wheel early in the race, Sam Mayer, Riley Herbst, Sheldon Creed, and Daniel Hemric completed the top 10.
Smith led the field to the green flag with Allgaier on the outside pole. On lap three, Parker Kligerman spun in turn one to bring out the first caution. Smith led the first 12 laps before Allgaier took the lead. On lap 23 it was Auto Club Speedway winner Nemechek who took the lead from Allgaier to win stage one of the race.
Hill led them to the restart, but Nemechek took the lead in turn one. On lap 72, the polesitter Smith returned to the front, and the caution came out one lap later for Josh Berry spinning through the infield and bringing out the yellow flag for the third time. On the lap 79 restart, Allgaier passed Smith to take the lead back, however, Allgaier was penalized for a restart violation, giving the lead back to Smith.
With four laps to go, Hill grabbed the lead from Smith and won stage two under caution, when Rajah Caruth spun out on lap 89. The race’s final stage went completely caution-free.
2023 Xfinity Series Las Vegas Results
Next week the NASCAR Xfinity Series wraps up the West Coast Swing at Phoenix Raceway. Watch the United Rentals 200 on Saturday, March 11 at 4:30 p.m. ET on FS1.
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