A race-ending mistake last Saturday at Phoenix Raceway cost Austin Hill the NASCAR Xfinity Series points lead.
Just 61 laps into the fourth event of the season, Hill bounced off the inside wall in Turn 3 and collected the cars of Sheldon Creed and Dean Thompson. Hill finished 37th and fell to fourth in the standings as Richard Childress Racing teammate Jesse Love took over the points lead with a ninth-place finish.
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“I was right behind the No. 8 (Sammy Smith) and just messed up,” Hill said ruefully. “I misjudged the inside wall, and that may be the dumbest move I‘ve had happen to me in racing.
“We‘ll rebuild for Las Vegas and try to have a good outcome there.”
Hill will look to regain the form that earned a victory at Atlanta Motor Speedway and the series lead in Saturday‘s The Liuna! at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (4:30 p.m. ET, The CW, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
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Hill is the only former Las Vegas winner in the field for Saturday‘s race, but he‘ll have plenty of competition from perennial contender Justin Allgaier. The driver of the No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet has more second-place finishes (4), top fives (11), stage wins (3) and laps led (330) than the rest of the field combined, despite being winless at the track.
Last week‘s winner, Aric Almirola, will make his third start of the season in the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, seeking his first top-10 finish at Las Vegas in his seventh start there.