It’s been a while since a NASCAR Xfinity Series race has left us with such an abundance of things to talk about.
Connor Zilisch is nuclear hot and got JR Motorsports its 100th win at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Justin Allgaier got caught up in the bi-monthly Kyle Larson brain fart. Sam Mayer figured out how to push someone. Taylor Gray came painfully close to a win again. The final playoff spot looks like it’ll be decided between the Burton cousins.
So much for all of that!
Instead, all eyes have been on Austin Hill and his white gloves.
Following a bump by Aric Almirola, Hill lost control for a moment. Once he straightened it out, Hill proceeded to lose his mind. He right hooked Almirola into the wall.
Hill immediately pleaded his innocence on the radio, and if you listen to Denny Hamlin’s Actions Detrimental podcast, you probably heard a decent defense for what happened this week. Hamlin offered up that it’s possible Hill was letting the wheel slide in his hand to regain control but simply let it go too far left.
Hill had a chance to give his version of that defense while sitting in the pit lane, serving a five-lap penalty.
“They can go [expletive] themselves,” Hill said. “[Explitive] NASCAR. That is [expletive] [expletive]. I’m [expletive] sideways, I go to correct it back to the left, it gets locked to the left and I [expletive] run into the [No.] 19.”
Oh, never mind.
After swearing at NASCAR on the radio for a minute, Hill declined to answer media questions about the incident where he could have further defended his actions or, at minimum, apologized. The defense rests. Perry Mason, he is not. And a model driver for younger Xfinity guys he wants to be, he is not either.
Thankfully, Richard Childress had something to say. After the Richmond Raceway NASCAR Cup Series debacle of last season, there’s nobody who could give us a more clear, fair and honest opinion on what happened.
“[I won’t say] nothing,” Childress said. “I’ll get in more trouble than I already am with NASCAR. Period.”
Well, all right, I guess they’ll just keep quiet about this and sort it out behind closed doors. Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic asked Childress if he thought Hill should be suspended, and he gave another calm, collected answer.
“Hell no,” Childress said. “They didn’t do a damn thing to the [No.] 2 car [Austin Cindric] when he wrecked Ty [Dillon] and admitted to it, drove into the right rear and wrecked him at COTA. It’s who you are. We’re a blue-collar team. They give us trouble all the time.”
And once again, the defense rests. The verdict? Hill was suspended for the upcoming Xfinity race at Iowa Speedway and stripped of all playoff points.
While on paper this looks like it hurts only Hill and his team, there’re three parties that need to take responsibility and take a long look at themselves.
First off, Hill. For all we know, he may be right. Maybe this wasn’t a blatant act of retaliation and simply a mistake.
What’s missing for that to be considered is the benefit of the doubt. You tend to lose that when you do this all the time; race other people aggressively and go off the deep end when someone wants to return the favor or challenge you. Ask Cole Custer. Or Shane van Gisbergen. Or Daniel Dye. Or Sheldon Creed.
It’s that repeated behavior that makes it understandable why Dale Earnhardt Jr. laughs at the idea of Hill saying he could “mentor the kids” after the Martinsville Speedway fiasco. It’s probably why he doesn’t get the big-time Cup offers he’s looking for. Now it’s likely going to cost him an opportunity to win the championship for which he was once a favorite.
Then there’s Childress. “It’s who you are” wasn’t much of a defense for Bubba Wallace or Chase Elliott, two of the sport’s most visible stars, when they right hooked someone and got suspended. And this “blue-collar team” thing? The man owns a vineyard, co-owns a PBR team, was on the board of directors for the NRA and, oh yeah, provides engines for about half the Xfinity Series.
It’s fitting that the man who once told someone to “hold my watch” still can’t tell what timeline he’s living in. The days of Dale Earnhardt hooking Darrell Waltrip and rattling Terry Labonte’s cage are over. There’s consequences for that now, and they’re a lot better than the consequence of injury — or worse — that had put a black cloud over the sport for decades. If you can’t catch up with the modern landscape of the sport, maybe it’s time to hand the team over to someone who can.
That said, Childress did make one good point. OK, more like half a good point, but still.
Cindric didn’t necessarily get away with right-hooking Dillon at Circuit of the Americas — he was docked 50 regular season points — but it did set a new precedent.
The fact that there was any debate about or doubt that Hill would be suspended is damning on NASCAR’s handling of penalties. Cindric was docked 50 points. The year prior, Austin Dillon was stripped of a playoff berth but allowed to race the next week. But Elliott and Wallace, both clear-cut intentional wrecks themselves, got suspensions. Meanwhile, we haven’t heard from NASCAR about Christopher Bell hitting Zane Smith in the right-rear the day after the Hill-Almirola incident.
You’d get more consistency in officiating from a Magic 8 Ball right now than NASCAR based on the last three seasons. And not just on right hooks or intentional wrecks either.
As one of those people who agreed with the penalty to Cindric at the time, I’ll admit I was wrong and Childress is right (kinda). He shouldn’t have gotten away with it. While we the viewing public might view hooking someone at 100 mph differently than hooking someone at 180 mph, NASCAR shouldn’t. A right hook is a right hook.
The sooner NASCAR puts its foot down firmly on that issue is the day we might see these incidents stop.
James Krause joined Frontstretch in March 2024 as a contributor. Krause was born and raised in Illinois and graduated from Northern Illinois University. He currently works in La Crosse, Wisconsin as a local sports reporter, including local short track racing. Outside of racing, Krause loves to keep up with football, music, anime and video games.