Another NASCAR Xfinity Series superspeedway race ended under caution and needing a replay review to determine who was leading at the time of caution.
Austin Hill won for a record breaking ninth time on drafting style tracks, breaking a record he shared with Tony Stewart and Dale Earnhardt Sr.
“When Derek (Kneeland, spotter) told me that I had won, he followed it up with, ‘you’re the guy now and you have nine and they have eight,’ I was like, ‘that’s awesome’ but for me, I don’t think a lot about that because I have a lot to live up to when it comes to those two names.
“It’s awesome but at the same time, I have a lot to do before I’m anywhere close to the same level of Stewart and Dale Sr.”
The race ended when Jesse Love and Connor Zilish, best friends who dominated most of the race alongside Hill, came together and sent the latter hard into the inside wall on the backstretch.
Hill was visibly emotional after the race and was more concerned with his best friend than talking about the crash. He even visited him in the infield care center to make sure he was healthy and that they were okay.
There were.
“He was crying in there and just wanted to make sure he didn’t hurt me, we’re best friends,” Zilisch said. “I wouldn’t want to do that to him. I’m very grateful to have someone like Jesse who we can race hard on the track but not care about each other off the track too.”
Love took responsibility but Zilisch wasn’t entirely sure he needed to.
“I watched the replay once and it’s hard to tell,” Zilisch said. “I was just trying to keep him in my mirror, right? You can’t let guys have runs like that. I probably let us get too far clear out front. I need to rewatch it to have a clearer answer but maybe I should have given him the run.”
The caution immediately came out, much to the chagrin of fans who wanted a green flag finish, but NASCAR needed to check on Zilisch immediately.
Hill was in the middle of a three wide lead group with Love and Jeb Burton.
“I saw the video board when we rolled down the frontstretch and it looked like, from where I was sitting, which I’m obviously biased for myself, it looked like I had won,” Hill said. “It feels like a lifetime waiting. The same thing happened to me at Daytona a couple of years ago, that I had to wait to find out if I had won the race or not. My stomach is kind of cramping up and I have to tell myself that it’s fine either way, second is a good day and nothing is broke.
“When my spotter Derek Kneeland told me we had won, that I checked Talladega off my list, it was a huge sigh of relief.”
Burton was adamant he had won his third Talladega race and was also visibly emotional upon climbing out of the car.
“The angles I keep seeing, we won the race,” Burton said. “Maybe there is a different angle that I haven’t seen. Before we leave here today, I am definitely going to see proof because what I keep seeing on the TV screens doesn’t look like we lost the race.
“If we lost the race, we lost the race obviously. But I feel like we won. I had the [Nos.] 2 car here and 21 car here and I was ahead of all three of them from my point of view.”
He wishes NASCAR would have just let the race play out naturally.
“I don’t know why we threw the caution anyway, I don’t get that at all,” he said. “I feel like we should race back unless somebody was flipping or seriously hurt, we should be able to race back.”
Results
- Austin Hill
- Jeb Burton
- Jesse Love
- Justin Allgaier
- Matt DiBenedetto
- Anthony Alfredo
- Blaine Perkins
- Harrison Burton
- Sheldon Creed
- Daniel Dye #
- Taylor Gray #
- Patrick Emerling
- Leland Honeyman
- Sam Mayer
- Nick Sanchez #
- Ryan Ellis
- Carson Kvapil #
- Dean Thompson #
- Brennan Poole
- Jesse Iwuji
- Joey Gase
- Mason Maggio
- Kyle Sieg
- Kris Wright
- Christian Eckes #
- Jeremy Clements
- Connor Zilisch #
- Brandon Jones
- Josh Williams
- Caesar Bacarella
- Sammy Smith
- Jeffrey Earnhardt
- Aric Almirola
- Katherine Legge (i)
- Greg Van Alst
- Ryan Sieg
- William Sawalich #
- Parker Retzlaff
Read the full article here