WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. — Austin Hill made his return to the NASCAR Xfinity Series at Watkins Glen International after serving a one-race suspension at Iowa Speedway for intentionally wrecking Aric Almirola at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
In his first race back at Watkins Glen on Saturday (Aug. 9), he immediately found himself under fire again.
After a relatively clean race, Hill found himself third behind Shane van Gisbergen and Connor Zilisch when the two made contact, sending van Gisbergen hard into the outside wall to bring out a caution.
As a result, Hill restarted second alongside ZIlisch on the ensuing restart.
However, the new placement of the restart zone before the final corner allowed the No. 88 to clear Hill before they even got to the frontstretch. Hill tucked in behind Zilisch all the way toward turn 1.
That’s when Hill moved Zilisch up the track and took the lead for himself.
“I hadn’t restarted in the first two rows all day,” Hill said after the race. “When I restarted on the outside of him and got back behind him, I was just going to my normal ‘400’ brake marker that I was using all day on restarts. I was trying to get it slowed down. Honestly I wanted to touch him just to show him, ‘Hey, I’m here.’ But I wasn’t trying to ship him off into the corner like I did.
A quick caution for debris in the bus stop set up another restart, where Michael McDowell seized the lead from Hill with a rare outside pass in turn 1. However, Zilisch’s road course wizardry prevailed again, as he shot up from fifth to first in about a lap and a half to take the lead.
As Zilisch set sail, Hill and McDowell were joined by a frenzy of other drivers, including Joe Gibbs Racing teammates William Sawalich and Taylor Gray. Hill tried to set up McDowell for turn 6 by swinging wide off the carousel, using as much runoff as possible to get to McDowell’s inside.
”I was trying to get by the [No.] 11 as quick as I could because the [No.] 88 was driving away from us,” Hill said. “I had a massive run off the carousel. I thought I was trying to catch him off guard and get to his left side.”
Hill definitely got to McDowell’s left side, as the No. 21 skewed sideways and as he tried to catch it, he hooked McDowell’s bumper and turned him into the wall and in front of the pack.
Sawalich and Gray each got a piece, while others in the back began running over each other in an attempt to make it through. But the straightaway between turns 5 and 6 is one of the narrowest on the course, leaving no room for anyone to go, resulting in a massive pileup amongst those in the back.
”Honestly I couldn’t see a whole lot,” Sawalich said upon leaving the infield care center. “I saw the [No.] 11 car fly into the air, and I saw hoses and brake ducts and a tire that hit my car. I couldn’t really see a whole lot.”
“[I saw] a lot of dust,” said Josh Bilicki, who was pile-driven by DGM Racing teammate Ryan Ellis in the melee. “My spotter said, ‘Check up,’ so I checked up. I feel like I did a good job checking up, and then before you know it, I was up in the air.”
The wreck was a huge loss for both DGM Racing and RSS Racing, who both lost at least one car in the mess due to violent hits. Ellis, in particular, had the windshield cave in on him when he hit Bilicki, causing oil from the No. 91 to spill onto Ellis, which is why he tried to exit his racecar as quick as possible.
”I didn’t think you could eat a car with the windshield here,” Ellis said with a chuckle. “But for a small team, it sucks. We go to Portland [International Raceway] in three weeks, and I’m sure my car’s destroyed and the [No.] 91’s destroyed. Same thing with the Sieg cars.”
Kyle Sieg confirmed that one of the RSS cars was likely never to be raced again.
”This car’s trashed,” Sieg said. “We probably won’t ever race it again and it’ll go to the graveyard.”
Immediately after the crash, McDowell was livid on the radio, claiming that Hill straight up hooked him into the outside wall. But McDowell, who suffered a similarly hard crash in the Cup Series race in 2014, calmed down after leaving the infield care center.
”He turned me for sure,” McDowell said. “There is no way he was gonna get alongside me, there was no room there. … He doesn’t need a penalty for that, there was just no way he was gonna finish the pass there.
”I’ll go back and see what I could have done differently too, because there’s always two sides to it once you look through.”
The crash reignited a years-long debate on just how much paved runoff is needed for a road course like Watkins Glen, and whether or not the added speed the runoff provides ruins the racing or sets up for big wrecks like the one on Saturday.
“It’s a tricky scenario,” McDowell said. “Us drivers and teams take advantage of every inch of real estate you give us. They added the real estate to give some runoff so that you would have more opportunities for accident avoidance.
”Unfortunately, we’re using it all up and then cutting back across very abruptly over those kerbs. … I feel like it’s one of those areas where it’s our own faults. It’s not really something we should be mad at the track or officiating [for] because we don’t have to go seven car-lengths out there. We could just stay on the curb and be fine. But that’s not how you’re gonna win the race.”
Hill took the blame for the accident, though maintained that nothing he did was intentional.
”If everyone wants to blame me for it, then I’ll take the blame for it,” Hill said. “I could’ve lifted and lived to fight another corner. Unfortunately, that’s not what happened and it wrecked a lot of racecars. Didn’t wanna come back from what we had going on the last two weeks and have this happen, but heck, it’s racing. Things like this are gonna happen.
While teams will begin work on financial recovery after the accident, Hill was able to hang on to finish fourth in his first race back from suspension, leading three laps in the process.
”Felt good [to be back],” Hill said. “Showed a lot of speed in our Bennett Chevrolet. We showed that this [No.] 21 group — all the outside noise, people talking in the garage, what have you — all that is, is chatter. It doesn’t bring us down any at all.
”We’re gonna keep digging deep for these next few races, get ready for the playoffs and try to put it on ‘em.”
Anthony Damcott joined Frontstretch in March 2022. Currently, he is an editor and co-authors Fire on Fridays (Fridays); he is also the primary Truck Series reporter/writer and serves as an at-track reporter. He has also assisted with short track content and social media, among other duties he takes/has taken on for the site. In 2025, he became an official member of the National Motorsports Press Association. A proud West Virginia Wesleyan College alum from Akron, Ohio, Anthony is now a grad student. He is a theatre actor and fight coordinator in his free time.
You can keep up with Anthony by following @AnthonyDamcott on X.