Bob Pockrass
FOX Motorsports Insider
NASCAR suspended Xfinity Series driver Austin Hill for one race for retaliating Saturday against Aric Almirola by hooking his car in the right rear, sending Almirola hard into the Indianapolis Motor Speedway wall.
Hill will serve his suspension this weekend at Iowa Speedway. Austin Dillon will replace him in the Richard Childress Racing No. 21 Xfinity Series car.
Austin Hill looks on during qualifying for the NASCAR Xfinity Series Pennzoil 250 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway
“Richard Childress Racing will not appeal the penalty NASCAR issued to the No. 21 team following the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway,” the team said in a social media post.
“We remain focused on winning a championship with Austin Hill in 2025.”
The penalty is more than a suspension. A driver who is suspended loses all playoff points earned during the regular season. Playoff points help a driver advance in the three-race playoff rounds if they do not win.
Hill is fifth in the Xfinity Series standings and is ranked third in playoff points with 21 (not including the points he would earn by finishing in the top 10 of the regular-season standings).
The suspension was not a surprise, as NASCAR often suspends drivers for that type of retaliatory move on high-speed tracks.
Earlier this season, NASCAR did not suspend Austin Cindric but instead docked him 50 points and fined him $50,000 or a retaliatory hook on Ty Dillon in the Cup race at Circuit of the Americas. That incident has remained a topic of debate.
Hill said on the radio to his team that the accident wasn’t on purpose. Almirola, speaking on the CW race telecast after the accident, said it was obvious that it was. NASCAR held Hill five laps after the incident for reckless driving.
“It was definitely intentional,” Almirola said.
Almirola said he did make contact with Hill to force him to wiggle so Almirola could make the pass.
“I got him loose and he just turned left and hooked me in the right rear,” Almirola said.
“[It was] honestly one of the biggest hits in my entire NASCAR career. Very reminiscent of the hit I took when I broke my back [in 2017 at Kansas].”
Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.
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