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Georgia’s Austin Hill Goes Back-To-Back At Atlanta Motor Speedway

by Hunter Thomas September 7, 2024 0 comments

HAMPTON, Ga. – Georgia native, Austin Hill completed the Atlanta Motor Speedway sweep in the NASCAR Xfinity Series after following up his win in February with a victory in Saturday’s Focused Health 250.

Hill is so good at the redesigned track that he has now won four of the six series races to be run on it. On Saturday, Hill led the field to the white flag thanks to a huge push by rookie, Corey Heim. As the leaders entered Turn 2, Heim made a move on the high side to try and overtake Hill, but he was pinched into the wall and fell back. Up next was Parker Kligerman, but he just didn’t have the speed to catch Hill. The victory marked the third of the season for the driver of the Richard Childress Racing No. 21 Bennett Transportation Chevrolet.

“We had to dig deep for that,” said Hill. “The 81 (Chandler Smith) got into (Turn) 3 and had me jacked up. He’s doing what he has to do to win. Very surprised that the 26 (Heim) pushed me there and didn’t go with a Toyota, and then I thought I had messed up into (Turns) 1 and 2, and I hate it that he got into the fence. I wasn’t trying to run him into the fence. I was just trying to like, get him aero tight or get him aero loose because that was happening to me a lot today.”

Hill continued and said, “And then I just had to keep the 48 (Kligerman) there. I got down into (Turn) 3, and that’s the first time all day I had gotten extremely tight into 3, but we had enough momentum off of (Turn) 4 that it didn’t matter. This is insane”

Kligerman finished runner-up, followed by AJ Allmendinger, Chandler Smith and Heim. Completing the top-10 was polesitter Jesse Love, Sammy Smith, Josh Williams, Brandon Jones and Ryan Truex.

Justin Allgaier won Stage 1, and Allmendinger won Stage 2.

There were 12 lead changes among nine drivers. Allmendinger led a race high of 40 laps.

The caution flew six times for 36 laps; however, there was only one caution for a multicar accident, and it occurred on Lap 146 as drivers were fighting for the lead. A cut tire sent Allgaier up the track entering Turn 3, and a chain reaction was ignited. Allgaier slid up into Cole Custer and then Taylor Gray, Riley Herbst, Ryan Sieg piled in.

Despite the crash and the 30^th place finish, Allgaier continues to lead the standings, with 34 points over Custer.

The NASCAR Xfinity Series will visit Watkins Glen International on Saturday, Sept. 14 for the Mission 200 at the Glen. Live coverage will broadcast on USA at 3 p.m. ET.

Photo Credit: Hunter Thomas/TheFourthTurn.com