Austin Hill wins home race in Atlanta

Austin Hill hails from Winston, Georgia, which is located approximately fifty-five miles from Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton. After nearly winning at his home track in March, Hill completed the effort in Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series action as he dominated the final stage and beat back Josh Berry for his second win of the season.

Hill and Richard Childress Racing team-mate Sheldon Creed enjoyed a strong outing as they finished 1–2 in Stage #2, though the latter subsequently fell out of the top ten. Meanwhile, Hill took the lead on lap 101 and save for some threats from the likes of Berry and Ryan Truex was virtually unstoppable as he led a race-high total of seventy-three laps.

Some fans and other figures took issue with Hill’s last-stage dominance and an otherwise unremarkable race on a reconfigured track intended for superspeedway-style racing, which they partly attribute to the Xfinity package which was simply the standard intermediate oval aerodynamic setup with superspeedway engine regulations. By comparison, the Cup Series‘ Atlanta package was the standard one used for superspeedways.

Anthony Alfredo, who finished fourteenth, tweeted during Sunday’s Cup race that it “has had a lot more side-by-side ‘pack racing’ than the Xfinity race. It’s most likely because they run their full speedway package. Xfinity is just the traditional intermediate aero package, but with the superspeedway motor package. Handling is still important tho.”

Regardless of circumstances that may have helped him, both of Hill’s Xfinity wins have come on superspeedways (or similar as Atlanta is still 1.5 miles in length) with Saturday and the Daytona season opener in February, establishing himself as one of the top drivers at such tracks. He was also the favourite at Talladega Superspeedway in April before a late crash, while his maiden Camping World Truck Series victory came at Daytona in 2019.

“What a car,” said Hill. “RCR has been working their ever-loving tails off to give me a car that will race really fast.”

On the other hand, Ty Gibbs entered Atlanta as the defending winner and with a nine-point margin separating him and championship leader A.J. Allmendinger, but left twenty points back after a lap 93 wreck while racing fellow Monster Energy driver Riley Herbst.

“We had a good car and the #98 just slid up and wasn’t clear and hooked us in the left front and got me in the wall,” said Gibbs. “Just hard racing and came out on the bad side of it. Luckily, happy to walk out of this place on my feet. It’s disappointing, but you can’t really control speedway racing.”

Race results

Finish	Start	Number	Driver	Team	Manufacturer	Laps	Status
1	5	21	Austin Hill	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet	163	Running
2	2	8	Josh Berry	JR Motorsports	Chevrolet	163	Running
3	21	18	Ryan Truex	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	163	Running
4	22	48	Tyler Reddick*	Big Machine Racing Team	Chevrolet	163	Running
5	16	11	Daniel Hemric	Kaulig Racing	Chevrolet	163	Running
6	6	9	Noah Gragson	JR Motorsports	Chevrolet	163	Running
7	7	7	Justin Allgaier	JR Motorsports	Chevrolet	163	Running
8	18	10	Landon Cassill	Kaulig Racing	Chevrolet	163	Running
9	8	98	Riley Herbst	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford	163	Running
10	3	16	A.J. Allmendinger	Kaulig Racing	Chevrolet	163	Running
11	4	19	Brandon Jones	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	163	Running
12	15	2	Sheldon Creed	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet	163	Running
13	13	27	Jeb Burton	Our Motorsports	Chevrolet	163	Running
14	14	23	Anthony Alfredo	Our Motorsports	Chevrolet	163	Running
15	9	39	Ryan Sieg	RSS Racing	Ford	163	Running
16	29	38	Kyle Sieg	RSS Racing	Ford	163	Running
17	11	51	Jeremy Clements	Jeremy Clements Racing	Chevrolet	163	Running
18	26	31	Myatt Snider	Jordan Anderson Racing	Chevrolet	163	Running
19	19	26	Jeffrey Earnhardt	Sam Hunt Raicng	Toyota	163	Running
20	23	02	Brett Moffitt	Our Motorsports	Chevrolet	163	Running
21	36	6	Ryan Vargas	JD Motorsports	Chevrolet	163	Running
22	28	08	David Starr	SS-Green Light Racing	Ford	163	Running
23	12	36	Alex Labbé	DGM Racing	Chevrolet	162	Running
24	30	91	Mason Massey	DGM Racing	Chevrolet	162	Running
25	20	78	Josh Williams	B.J. McLeod Motorsports	Chevrolet	162	Running
26	32	35	Joey Gase	Emerling-Gase Motorsports	Ford	161	Running
27	37	13	Natalie Decker	MBM Motorsports	Ford	161	Running
28	34	45	Caesar Bacarella	Alpha Prime Racing	Chevrolet	161	Running
29	17	4	Bayley Currey	JD Motorsports	Chevrolet	161	Running
30	31	07	Joe Graf Jr.	SS-Green Light Racing	Ford	161	Running
31	38	47	Brennan Poole*	Mike Harmon Racing	Chevrolet	159	Running
32	27	34	Jesse Iwuji	Jesse Iwuji Motorsports	Chevrolet	157	Running
33	24	68	Brandon Brown	Brandonbilt Motorsports	Chevrolet	119	Accident
34	10	1	Sam Mayer	JR Motorsports	Chevrolet	106	Accident
35	1	54	Ty Gibbs	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	93	Accident
36	35	66	J.J. Yeley	MBM Motorsports	Ford	71	Fuel Pump
37	33	5	Matt Mills*	B.J. McLeod Motorsports	Chevrolet	64	Engine
38	25	44	Sage Karam	Alpha Prime Racing	Chevrolet	23	Engine

Italics – Competing for Rookie of the Year
* – Ineligible for points