By David Morgan, Associate Editor
HAMPTON, Ga. – Three things in life are certain: Death, taxes, and Austin Hill winning NASCAR Xfinity Series races at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
For the fourth time in the last six races on the 1.5-mile superspeedway, native Georgian Hill was able to be victorious on his home turf, piloting his No. 21 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet to victory, sweeping the season and banking his third win of the season.
Saturday’s win also breaks a winless streak dating back to February when Hill was able to start the season with wins at Daytona and Atlanta.
After starting in fourth place, Hill didn’t lead a single lap all day until the final restart, but kept his nose clean and found a way to pull off the victory.
Lining up on the front row for the final restart with 13 laps to go, Hill saw his opportunity to strike and took it, using a push from fellow Chevrolet driver Josh Williams to eke out in front of leader Chandler Smith and from then on, it was his race to lose.
A number of other contenders took shots at him as the laps wound down, most notably Parker Kligerman, who powered his way from fourth to second on the final lap and had Hill in his sights when Hill and Corey Heim made contact in Turn 2, but lost his momentum in Turn 3 after washing up the track, allowing Hill to skate to the win.
“It was just resilience with this whole Bennett 21 team. Like you said, our Bennett Chevrolet wasn’t handling great all day. It wasn’t as fast as Xfinity internet. Well, it had speed. I can’t say that. It had speed. Just the handle on it was tough all day. We had to dig deep for that one,” Hill said of how he pulled off the win.
“This is insane. To win with this gold car. Bennett’s 50th anniversary. This is their biggest race of the entire year. To do this for our sponsor, it means a lot. There’s over 500 people here for Bennett. Employees, friends, family, you name it.
“I can’t thank everyone enough from Bennett. RCR, ECR engines were just good all day. We’re going to celebrate this one because it didn’t come easy.”
Kligerman came home as the runner-up, beating AJ Allmendinger in a drag race back to the line, marking yet another race in which he was in position to make a run at the win, but ultimately fell short.
Nonetheless, it was a good points day for Kligerman and the No. 48 Big Machine Racing team, as they are still in the battle to make the Playoffs. With two races…
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