Austin Hill steals Martinsville Xfinity win as leaders wreck in ugly finish

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Austin Hill wasn’t even in the conversation on the final restart, but the chaos that followed presented him with the opportunity to earn Richard Childress Racing its 100th win in the NASCAR Xfinity Series. In the end, Hill only led across the line on lap 250 — the last lap.

Taylor Gray lined up behind Sammy Smith for the final restart at Martinsville, quickly snatching the lead away for the final two-lap dash to the finish. Smith was left to battle his JR Motorsports teammate Justin Allgaier for the runner-up finish while Gray was skipping away in the lead.

However, Smith was not keen to let Gray collect that victory, driving deep into the final corner and spinning Gray out. Allgaier and Smith then collided, opening the door for Hill to sneak through and snatch the win away as the field wrecked behind them. Hill also won the $100,000 Dash4Cash bonus.

“We restarted seventh there,” said Hill, who now has 12 career wins. “I chose bottom just because of how rough everybody was on these restarts. I had to do what I had to do there on the last lap.”

Hill also offered an apology for initiating a wreck earlier in the race that inadvertently took out his RCR teammate Jesse Love, saying: “I’m extremely sorry to our teammate for getting into that wreck down in (Turn) 1 … I feel really bad for wrecking a teammate like that. I’ll have to give him a call after the race.”

Watching the replay of the hectic finish on the big screen, Hill then talked through it, giving his perspective of all the chaos. “I didn’t have the fastest car, but that restart, it just got wild. They’re leaning on each other and I knew getting into (Turn) 3, they were all gonna get beating and banging. They all got to hitting each other and I hit the #7 [Allgaier] a little bit, shoved him up and got on the apron a little bit right there. And came home with the win.”

Ryan Sieg, RSS Racing Ford, Kris Wright, Chevrolet, Sammy Smith, JR Motorsprots Chevrolet

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Sheldon Creed finished second, extending his record number of runner-up finishes without a win to 14. Allgaier was third, Brennan Poole fourth, and Sam Mayer fifth.

“What’s one more (runner-up finish) at this point?” said Creed, who has yet to win in 110 Xfinity Series starts. “We fought all day … just super proud of everyone at the Haas Factory Team.”

As for Smith, he crashed across the line, collecting several other cars as he finished tenth. Gray reached the finish line as the last car on the lead lap in 29th. The two drivers had a tense conversation outside the infield care center, but it never escalated to a physical confrontation.