NASCAR official issues driver suspension verdict after Watkins Glen wreck

NASCAR has handed down the official verdict after that contact involving Austin Hill and Michael McDowell caused a major wreck at Watkins Glen.

Chaos reigned on Lap 74 of the Xfinity Series showdown on Saturday when Hill came into contact with McDowell as the pair battled for second place.

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That set off a terrifying chain of events with McDowell’s No. 11 Chevrolet launched into the air before collecting NINE additional cars after coming back down.

The result was a red flag for wall repairs, trouble for a number of playoff contenders and speculation about whether Hill was about to pick up another suspension.

Watkins Glen was his first race back after being suspended at Iowa following another high-profile wreck - this time at Indianapolis. On that occasion Hill had rear-hooked Aric Almirola into the wall.

Hill was then immediately held on pit road for five laps for reckless driving, before later being handed that one-race ban and losing his 21 playoff points.

NASCAR looked long and hard into whether Hill should be penalized again for what happened at Watkins Glen, and late Tuesday the verdict came down.

Austin Hill penalty verdict

VP of Competition Elton Sawyer told Sirius XM NASCAR Radio: “We don’t see anything at this time.

“I think all of those incidents this past weekend, as we do every weekend, we look at them, we start on Monday gathering all the data and even situations that our fans, or even that have not been viewed by our audience or even teams. We take a much deeper dive into that."

McDowell didn’t believe there was any malicious intent from Hill, stating: “He turned me for sure. I mean, there is no way he was gonna get alongside me.

“I got around him cleanly on those restarts, and there at the end, like I said, I’ll have to get a better view of it. But to me, he wasn’t alongside me. Just got to my rear bumper, turned me sideways.

“I’m not talking like he intentionally hooked me. He doesn’t need a penalty for that. Just, there was no way he was gonna finish the pass there, and he just made a decision not to lift and to turn me - but that’s not the same as a right-rear hook at an oval. That’s not what I’m saying, so I don’t want that to be communicated. I don’t want that to be the headline.”

Case for the defense

Hill - as he had done post-Indianapolis - protested his innocence following Saturday’s latest wreck.

“Just two guys going for it. Nothing malicious, as much as everybody wants to sit there and try to make it more than it is. It was just two guys racing it out.

“I was trying to get by the 88 [Connor Zilisch] as quick as I could because the 88 was driving away from us and thought that we could maybe have a shot at racing with him and racing for the win there. I had a massive run off the Carousel. I kind of thought I was trying to catch [McDowell] off guard and get to his left side.

“The grass was coming up in front of us. I had to get to the right. I was kind of hoping he was going to move to the right and kind of give me some room, and it just didn’t happen.

“But if everyone wants to blame me for it, I’ll take the blame for it. I mean, I could have lifted and lived to fight another corner, and unfortunately, that’s not what happened and it wrecked a lot of race cars. So didn’t want to come back from what we had going on the last two weeks and have this happen, but heck, it’s racing. I mean, things like this are going to happen.”

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