Austin Hill won Saturday’s (Sept. 7) Focused Health 250 for his third win of the 2024 NASCAR Xfinity season after leading the final 12 laps of the race and holding off two last-lap charges from Chandler Smith and Corey Heim to collect his fourth win at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Hill nabbed his ninth-career Xfinity Series win, seven of which have come on the drafting-style tracks of Atlanta and Daytona International Speedway. Hill is now tied with Dale Earnhardt Jr. for third most drafting track wins in Xfinity Series history.
“Our Bennett Chevrolet wasn’t handling great all day,” Hill said. “It had plenty of speed. The handle on it was tough all day. We had to dig deep for that one. The 81 (Chandler Smith) got into (turn) 3 and had me jacked up. He’s doing what he had to do to win. (I’m) very surprised that the 26 pushed me there and didn’t go with a Toyota.”
Parker Kligerman finished runner-up for the third time in his Xfinity Series career, falling short to Hill by a margin of .34 seconds.
AJ Allmendinger charged through the field in the final laps to finish third after leading the most laps (40), while Smith was the highest-finishing Toyota, finishing fourth in his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. Smith ran second approaching the final lap with a Toyota of Heim behind him in the Sam Hunt Racing No. 26. Instead of pushing Smith, who had a fast run on the bottom, Heim chose to push Hill instead.
Smith was upset at Heim’s decision post-race.
“We’re Toyota teammates.” Smith said. “I got clear out of the restart zone and could of went bottom and hung him out to be the leader (of) the top lane, and I didn’t. I stayed up top with my Toyota teammate, ultimately gave up the lead doing that. I expected my Toyota teammate to come with me, and that didn’t happen… I’m kind of speechless honestly … I was trying to be a good teammate, and it didn’t pay off for me today as usual.”
Heim got the run on Hill and took it to the high side in turn 1, racing side-by-side with the No. 21 before brushing the wall in turns 1 and 2 and fading back to fifth.
“I though that I messed up into (turn) 1 and 2, and I hate it that (Heim) got into the fence,” Hill said. “I wasn’t trying to run him into the fence. I was trying to get him aero tight or get him aero loose because that was happening to me a lot today. If anyone ran up the track from the bottom, I would have big moments.”
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