At this point, Austin Hill believes he has a mystique of winning NASCAR O’Reilly Series races at Daytona that is more effective than the resume that generated the aura in the first place.
Of his 15 wins at the second-highest level of the discipline, 11 of them have come across Daytona, Talladega and Atlanta. And every time NOAPS comes to Daytona, the narrative is that everyone needs to gang up on Hill and teammate Jesse Love.
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And despite knowing that dynamic, no one consistently managed to do it on Saturday night on the Eve of the Daytona 500. Further, it seems like the rest of the field gets selfish and wants so much to be the one that beats Hill, that they just beat each other.
Hill sees it.
“I definitely think that a lot of people work against each other, and then they end up helping me, even though they’re trying not to,” Hill said. “I don’t know if this will make sense but they screw each other over and end up helping me in the process.
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“I’m like, ‘that’s fine with me.’ I don’t want to go into too much detail, because they probably know that it’s going on, but they don’t know how to fix it, you know what I’m saying?”
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Hill agreed that ‘everyone on the racetrack is super greedy and super selfish’ and that his No. 21 team is no exception. ‘We are extremely selfish,’ he says. He says it’s surprising that he is racing against teams with multiple cars and they end up tanking their own chances as an organization.
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“At one point there were three JR Motorsports cars lined up behind me, and they ended up not making anything happen,” Hill said. “I was very surprised. There was a few times that – (Rajah Caruth) made a move on me one time. Made a great move. Got inside of me, and his teammate, (Carson Kvapil) didn’t even go with him. I’m like, ‘thanks for the help, much appreciated’ and take advantage.”
He called it a ‘weird dynamic’ that he is surprised continues to happen. He says the entire field is full of drivers and teams that continue to bring cars and drivers capable of beating him but they don’t execute.
“Not saying that being cocky or anything like that,” Hill said. “Everyone in the series is super hard to beat, and tonight was one of those nights — it’s probably one of the hardest races that I’ve ran on being able to win at a superspeedway. Everyone is getting better. Everyone is upping their game. I didn’t know if we were going to be able to win the race tonight, but somehow we were able to get it done.”
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He was compared to Tony Stewart in the media center after the race due to their similar run of success in this division at this track. Hill said that surprises him because his natural disposition is to dislike this style of racing.
He didn’t bring this up but Dale Earnhardt didn’t like it either.
Austin Hill, Richard Childress Racing, Rajah Caruth, JR Motorsports
Austin Hill, Richard Childress Racing, Rajah Caruth, JR Motorsports
“It’s crazy to me just because I hated superspeedway racing,” Hill said. “I’ve grown to actually enjoy it, and I’ve changed my mindset about it.
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“When you go into these events, you just go with a clear mindset that you might win the race, you might run 40th. You just don’t know. You know, you don’t know if you’re going to win the race or end up wrecked on lap one.”
Despite 11 wins in these races, Hill says he still doesn’t consider himself the man to beat when he walks through the gates. It just kind of keeps happening for reasons he said above.
“I’m not coming in here like we’ve won all these races — like you said, 11 out of 15, whatever you said there,” Hill said. “I don’t come in there like that. I come in here like I’ve never won a superspeedway race before.
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“And I think that’s what makes us all successful on this 21 team is we never get complacent. We’re always working to be better. I’m working to be better inside the race car. There was things that I did tonight that I can do better at, and I’m going to go back and study it and be better the next time.
“Yeah, I mean, hearing all those things and hearing the percentage and stuff is wild to me, but it’s just because I think it’s truly because we come in here as a team with no-give-up attitude, and we know that when we come here, yes, we want to win the race, but we very well could end up running 40th.”
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