Home Cooking: Hill Grabs Another Atlanta Xfinity Win

Austin Hill celebrates in victory lane Saturday at Atlanta Motor Speedway. (HHP/Harold Hinson photo)

HAMPTON, Ga. – Just like in February, Austin Hill wasn’t the dominant driver in the NASCAR Xfinity Series field, but he found a way to win at his home track anyway.

Hill drove to victory in Saturday’s Focused Health 250 at Atlanta Motor Speedway, passing Chandler Smith for the lead following a lap-151 restart and fending off all comers the rest of the way.

The Winston, Ga., native led only the final 12 laps en route to his fourth Atlanta win in six Xfinity Series starts at the 1.54-mile quad-oval, as well as the ninth of his career overall.

It almost ended in disaster, as Corey Heim got to Hill’s right-rear quarter panel on the final lap in an effort to make a run at the top spot, but Hill squeezed Heim up off turn two and never looked back.

“I was on the edge of my seat there at the end,” Hill noted after climbing from his car.

“That was true resilience out of my entire No. 21 Bennett team. Our car wasn’t handling great all day; it had speed, but the handle on it was tough all day,” he added. “We had to dig deep for that one. The 81 [Smith] got me all jacked up coming to the white – he was doing everything he had to do to try and win – and then I was surprised the 26 [Heim] pushed me to the lead there.

“I thought I’d messed up, going into [turns] one and two, and I wasn’t trying to run Corey into the fence at all. I just wanted to get him out of shape aero-wise. … But after that I just had to keep everyone else behind me and had enough momentum off turn four that it didn’t matter.”

Saturday’s race was special for Hill, in that his sponsor – Georgia-based Bennett Transportation – had more than 500 guests at the track in celebration of the company’s 50th anniversary.

“This is insane,” Hill said. “To win with this gold car – Bennett’s 50th anniversary, it’s their biggest race of the entire year – and to do this for our sponsor means so much.”

For a quasi-superspeedway race, Saturday’s scorcher in the Georgia sun was relatively tame most of the day, with only single-car incidents aside from the two stage breaks until chaos broke out coming to 18 to go.

Cole Custer and Justin Allgaier were battling for second down the backstretch, with Allgaier charging the inside, when the pair banged doors before the approach to the third turn.

At that point, Allgaier’s car appeared to miss the corner, coming up and ultimately getting hooked into the outside SAFER Barrier by then fourth-running Taylor Gray.

As cars tried to check up behind the initial crash, a total of six frontrunners – including defending series champion Cole Custer and playoff bubble driver Ryan Sieg – were collected in the fracas.

The melee led to a 15-minute red flag for cleanup, and Allgaier, Custer, and Sieg were all eliminated from the race as a result of the damage to their respective cars.

Austin Hill (21) leads at the white flag Saturday at Atlanta Motor Speedway. (HHP/David Graham photo)

When racing resumed, Hill lined up to the bottom of the front row with Smith pulling the top lane on the restart. Though Heim was able to shove Smith to the lead initially, Hill dove deep into turn three before sliding up off turn four to narrowly clear himself out front.

Smith tried to execute a crossover on the other end of the speedway, but it didn’t pan out. He later had a shot to challenge for the lead coming to the white flag, but didn’t get drafting help from behind.

“It is what it is,” said Smith, who faded to fourth, in regard to the finish. “We had a really fast Wheelers Toyota GR Supra all day. It was as fast as Xfinity Internet. I feel like I’ve been robbed of three Atlanta wins now, unfortunately, in my career here. I’m kind of speechless honestly.

“There are a lot of different things that I could have done,” he added. “I could have been more selfish when I got cleared and went to the bottom and covered that and controlled the race for sure, but I was trying to be a good teammate and that didn’t pay for me today, as usual.”

Parker Kligerman got enough momentum after Heim tagged the wall to finish second behind Hill, crossing the line in a near-dead heat with A.J. Allmendinger, who ended up third.

Heim completed the top five after having a shot at his first career Xfinity Series win, followed by polesitter Jesse Love, Sammy Smith, Josh Williams, Brandon Jones, and Ryan Truex.

After Sieg’s involvement in the late Big One, he ended up 32nd, falling to 44 points behind Sammy Smith in the race for the 12th and final playoff berth.

Notably, Sam Mayer ended up 36th after a crash with three laps left in turn two, where his car hit the outside wall before bursting briefly into flames. Mayer was uninjured in the incident.

The NASCAR Xfinity Series season continues Saturday, Sept. 14 at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International with the running of the Mission 200 at the Glen. Broadcast coverage is slated for 3 p.m. ET, live on USA, the Motor Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.