Austin Hill is going to race for the other championship

Austin Hill is going to race for a NASCAR Xfinity Series championship.

Not, not that one but like Aric Almirola the weekend prior at Las Vegas, Hill clinched a spot in the Owner’s Championship that NASCAR pays out prize money to with a win on Saturday at Talladega Superspeedway. In the process, he also made a statement about a driver’s championship run that wasn’t meant to be as a result of a penalty issued earlier in the summer.

It was a penalty of his own doing as he retaliated against Almirola with a right rear hook at Indianapolis. As fate would have it, now they are racing each other for the alternative championship.  

And as Hill puts it, this actually means a great deal to him and Richard Childress Racing, plus whomever joins them, the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 19 and JR Motorsports No. 88 teams at Phoenix Raceway.

“The owner’s championship pays more than the driver’s championship does, so to me, it seems like the owner’s championship should probably get a little more prop,” Hill said. “I was viewing this like I was one of the drivers in the final eight.”

That was in response to question about his aggressive swerving at the end or the bold decision from crew chief Chad Haney to leave their car out on the verge of running out of fuel.

So what would it mean for him to win the owner’s championship given how all this happened?

“I don’t know how else to say it without making NASCAR mad, so I don’t know,” Hill said. “I would just be excited to win the owner’s championship and it would just show that we should have won the driver’s too.

“Being out of it or whatever, we still get to go for a championship and if I can bring that to RCR and Richard Childress for everything he’s done for me the past four years, that will be just as good as winning the driver’s championship in my perspective.”

What about the driver’s championship?

Even though the first two races of the Round of 8 were won by drivers ineligible for that championship, the two most proficient contenders of the season also locked in purely on points in the form of Connor Zilisch and Justin Allgaier.

That means the defending champion will look to go back-to-back but also must go through a driver that has already won 10 times this year. In the meantime, Allgaier promised crew chief Jim Pohlman that he would eat his first hot dog as an adult next weekend at Martinsville since they clinched early.

“I don’t even eat hot dogs, and I’d probably eat a hot dog next week at Martinsville, just because well … it doesn’t really matter,” Allgaier said. “We can go there and have fun.”

Apparently, this conversation took place over the radio, where Pohlman made his driver swear to eating one next weekend.

Which is hard to believe that it’s been that long.

“Well, you know when you’re younger and they show you how they’re made, and you swear you’re never going to eat one again,” Allgaier said. “Well, I’m going to eat those words and it’s going to be fun.”

Pohlman said it ‘was crazy to me’ that this is even a thing.

“He’s 38, 39 so that’s nuts,” Pohlman told Motorsport.com. “I love going to Martinsville and having hot dogs. We used to put the chalks marks on the garage and I haven’t missed a meal, clearly.

“It was news to me on the radio so when we clinched, I told him, we needed to have hot dogs since all the pressure was off.”

Meanwhile, there is a degree of pressure, and likely must-win scenarios, elsewhere in the field next week.

Connor Zilisch Adv.
Justin Allgaier Adv.
Jesse Love +40
Carson Kvapil +11
—
Sammy Smith -11
Brandon Jones -20
Sam Mayer -22
Sheldon Creed -41

Brandon Jones, Sam Mayer and Sheldon Creed were all involved in a multi-car incident on Lap 15 and as a result all face what look like must-win odds to make the championship race in two weeks.

“I think it’s got to be our top three best tracks that the 20 team can compete at, and I can compete at,” Jones said. “I like our chances going into it. I wish Las Vegas and this one would’ve gone a little bit differently, but there’s going to be a storyline at the end of this thing and there’s going to be somebody that gets in off of a win. I feel like our team is capable of doing it.”

Martinsville is going to be a bit of a slug fest, because it always is, but especially this race given the stakes. Creed and Mayer have both experienced that in the past and expect nothing less.

What is Creed willing to do?

“We’ll see,” he said with a laugh.

How about his Haas Factory Team teammate?

“I’m not an idiot,” Mayer said with a laugh, not wanting to give the Sanctioning Body any future ammo to use against him. “It’s a great question. We’ve see some good bump-and-runs at Martinsville. We’ve seen some bad ones too.

“I don’t want to do that. I’m going to be a man of honor but I’m going to give it all she has. That’s for sure.”

Sammy Smith ran out of fuel during the final caution but was able to stay on the lead lap, but he also developed a fuel pick-up issue as a result of running it dry. That is why he could only get back up to ninth, whereas teammate Carson Kvapil finished second and nearly won his way into the final four.

Smith agreed that Martinsville was going to be a ‘dogfight.’

“I told Phillip (Bell, crew chief) that we’re treating it as a must-win,” Smith said. “Carson is going to be good there. Brandon is going to be good there. It’s a tough position to be in but a lot could change for sure but I think we’re all going to be fighting for one spot.”

Kvapil meanwhile, having scored 10 stage points in addition to his runner-up, doesn’t have to win. And in fact, his 10 stage points were hugely beneficial because his points advantage is just 11 points. With that said, he really wanted his first win on Saturday. That stung to come up that close but also recognized that Talladega was directionally positive towards his championship goals.

“I’m mixed, right?” Kvapil said. “I mean, I feel like we did our job, and we did what we planned on doing coming into the weekend. We wanted to get stage points and put ourselves in position to try to win the race at the end but also just trying to have a good finish and trying to stack the points and I feel like we kind of did our job there.

“I wanted to be better than ninth in the first stage but that is just where we ended up but we were able to get third in the second stage and got a good amount of points.”

Jesse Love needs just 28 points to advance to the championship race. To put it plainly, he needs a ninth-place finish at a bare minimum but could also get there through some combination of stage points and his finish.

It’s an advantageous spot but he’s not taking anything for granted.

“Yes and no,” Love said. “If we get 15 stage points, then yes. If we don’t, I mean … I didn’t touch a soul there last year, ran a really clean race and then got wrecked. So I don’t know.

“I’m going to tell my guys to make sure that freaking whatever’s around the radiator is as strong as it can possibly be, because it’s so easy to get even just run in the back up there and pushing the guy in front of you on a restart stack-up, and the second that radiator goes, you’re done. So definitely have to be mindful of that and play it safe next week, start focusing on Phoenix without getting too far ahead of ourselves, but Martinsville is just always gonna be Martinsville.”

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– The Motorsport.com Team

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