JOLIET, Ill. — Shane van Gisbergen and Austin Hill have two years’ worth of history on the racetrack, and it all boiled over in Sunday’s (July 5) NASCAR Cup Series race at Chicagoland Speedway on lap 48, when van Gisbergen ran into the back of Hill entering turn 3.
Hill’s No. 33 backed hard into the outside wall, and he was done for the day after he sustained significant damage.
The two drivers had traded paint while battling on road courses during van Gisbergen’s rookie O’Reilly Auto Parts Series season in 2024, but the rivalry between them had gone dormant. It’s now been reignited, as Chicagoland was the third incident that van Gisbergen and Hill had been involved in in the last four races.
First was Pocono Raceway on June 14, when Hill and Josh Berry made contact and triggered a wreck that collected van Gisbergen. The following week saw Hill overdrive turn 1 at the front of the field on a restart at Naval Base Coronado and take the Trackhouse Racing teammates of van Gisbergen and Connor Zilisch along with him.
After van Gisbergen turned Hill at Chicagoland, the Richard Childress Racing team was understandably hot.
Spotter Derek Kneeland referred to van Gisbergen as “van Guggenheimer,” and team owner Richard Childress remarked that it was payback for San Diego.
“Somebody talk to NASCAR about that,” Childress added. “That was blatant.”
Hill was heated as well, and he showed his displeasure to van Gisbergen by running into the No. 97’s left front under caution before heading to the garage.
He was still frustrated after exiting the care center.
“I’m sure y’all have seen the replay, so if I have to explain it, people probably need to get glasses,” Hill said.
When asked, Hill said he had “no idea” if it was payback for San Diego and also added that he didn’t know “how much he would get out of him” if he were to talk to van Gisbergen about the incident.
Hill finished 37th, while van Gisbergen ended the race a lap down in 25th and offered his side of the story on pit road after the race.
“I was shooting for the bottom trying to get clean air, I was so tight, and he just chopped my nose and got in the wall,” van Gisbergen said. “So, sorry about that. Sorry to his guys, they’re always nice people, and it happens.”
Van Gisbergen said that the incident wasn’t intentional when asked, and when asked if he would have a conversation with Hill about it, he replied, “I’ll talk to him, but he just grunts.”
If van Gisbergen did enact revenge on Hill for San Diego, he clearly wasn’t going to admit it.
TNT did analyze the incident during its post-race coverage, and the data showed that van Gisbergen braked significantly later in turn 3 on the lap he got into Hill than the laps before it.
The two-year history between the two drivers says that Chicagoland isn’t the end of the rivalry, but simply the latest chapter. And if NASCAR feels the need to get involved based on the on-track actions of van Gisbergen or Hill this weekend, we’ll find that out in the upcoming week’s penalty report.
Stephen Stumpf is the NASCAR Content Director for Frontstretch and is a three-year veteran of the site. His weekly column is “Stat Sheet,” and he formerly wrote "4 Burning Questions" for three years. He also writes commentaries, contributes to podcasts, edits articles and is frequently at the track for on-site coverage.
Find Stephen on Twitter @stephen_stumpf
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