Denny Hamlin provided his reaction to the Austin Hill wreck at Watkins Glen, a crash involving Michael McDowell and 15 others.
For the second time in just a few weeks, Austin Hill was at the center of a controversial wreck in the NASCAR Xfinity Series. His wreck at Watkins Glen collected 16 cars, with a handful of them in the top 10 at the time.
But most have not ascribed any sort of malice to this one. Hill may well get away without any penalties.
“I mean I think he covered it well,” Denny Hamlin explained on the Actions Detrimental podcast. “He could have lifted. He probably should have lifted. But he didn’t.”
Racing against Michael McDowell for P2, Austin Hill got to the inside of his left quarter panel. The two cars made contact, and McDowell quickly slammed into the wall. Soon after, dirt was in the air, and multiple cars came piling into the area.
In total, 16 cars were involved in this wreck. Several days were ruined.
Still, Hamlin came away mostly defending Austin Hill this time around. It was just aggressive racing. Perhaps poorly judged, but not due to anything nefarious.
“He’s just not going to get the benefit of the doubt from the general public, but I am like, ‘OK, let me just think about this in an unbiased (way)’ — and I feel like I’m unbiased on Austin Hill,” Hamlin said. “But even here he was there, he was outside. But here’s what he didn’t take into account, is that that is a part of the racetrack where the spotters have no idea where you’re at.
“So thinking that Michael McDowell is going to know that you’re there at that portion of the track, there’s no chance. No chance of that.”
So what could McDowell have done differently to avoid the disastrous contact with Austin Hill? Hamlin explained.
“He’s supposed to go to the right quicker. So they both swung out, but Austin got the run on the outside. There’s a wall here. What the 11 should have done is hedged more towards getting, got to get back on the track sooner than later.”
Hamlin even compared the Austin Hill wreck to an earlier wreck between Shane van Gisbergen and Connor Zilisch. And that one didn’t seem to draw many detractors.
“It’s not that much different than the 9 and the 88 wreck, where there was nowhere else to go,” Hamlin said. “I know it looked vastly different. This take will be making its rounds on social. But I just didn’t, it obviously was not on purpose. It just was an ill-timed attempt to pass. Yeah. An ill-timed attempt to pass. There you go. And it wrecked a lot of cars.”
Hamlin once again defended Austin Hill by putting himself in the position Hill would have been in at the time. Driver to driver, he can see what happened.
“I can assure you in the car you’re not thinking about, Austin Hill’s not thinking about all the, ‘Well, can the spotter see at this point?'” Hamlin said. “No, he’s just trying to do everything he can to make the pass and the 11’s not as strong as him at that moment. He’s holding him up.
“Listen, neither one of them were going to catch the 88, so do you have to make that move at that moment of the race? Probably not. You’re going to pass them in a few corners or a few laps anyway. So just not the best decision. But not as egregious as the wreck appeared to be.”
On3’s Jonathan Howard also contributed to this report.
Category: General Sports
