He can deny it all he wants to, but all evidence suggests that Austin Hill lost his mind and intentionally hooked Aric Almirola in the right rear at Indianapolis Motor Speedway two weeks ago.
His team owner gave a defiant response when asked whether or not he should be suspended, even though everybody knew suspension was inevitable, but the team's decision not to appeal, thus costing Hill at least 21 playoff points, says all you need to know.
If it wasn't intentional, nobody really knows what is.
Upon his return after missing the race at Iowa Speedway, he caused an even bigger mess at Watkins Glen International, when he hooked Michael McDowell in the left rear coming out of the carousel, absolutely destroying the No. 11 Chevrolet and leading to massive pileup because so many other drivers were caught up behind it.
It led to a lengthy red flag period for cleanup and wall repair which saw dozens of vehicles – in addition to the wrecked race cars – on the track assisting with the process. It was the largest wreck in Xfinity Series history at Watkins Glen, with a total of 16 cars involved in the mess caused completely by Hill having zero patience.
Austin Hill one (1) race after being suspended for intentionally wrecking someone in the NASCAR Xfinity Series: pic.twitter.com/uVNGJcUf4D
— TDT Media (@ThirdDownThurs) August 9, 2025
Part of it is NASCAR's refusal to enact any sort of track limits at some of these road courses. You have guys running all kinds of distances off the actual race track, and at much higher speeds than these corners actually warrant.
We saw this when Connor Zilisch hooked Shane van Gisbergen in the right rear by attempting to come back onto the race track between turns seven and eight of the eight-turn, 2.454-mile (3.949-kilometer) Watkins Glen, New York road course. It looked a lot worse than it was from the perspective of "right hooking".
But once again, when it came to Hill, it took only a handful of laps for his frustration with racing somebody hard to get the best of him.
He had no chance of getting around McDowell on the outside with the retaining wall quickly approaching. He was nowhere near alongside of him. Then instead of accepting the obvious and simply avoiding a wreck altogether, he veered into him.
The self-proclaimed NASCAR "role model" has become a full-on danger to everybody when he is on the race track. This has gone too far. It's evolved into a scenario where he is wrecking people in the most violent ways possible.
What more does NASCAR need to see?
It's one thing for a guy without a reputation of wrecking people to make a mistake and make a knee-jerk, heat-of-the-moment reaction. That warrants a single-race suspension; NASCAR set that precedent several years ago, and generally speaking, they've stuck to it.
But this type of behavior is consistent.
Moving Connor Zilisch out of the way to take the lead is one thing. That's NASCAR. He didn't wreck him, and even though, of his own doing, Hill has put himself in position where anything he does is criticized, that reaction to that move was indeed overblown.
The reaction to him sending McDowell wasn't.
The only thing you can say here in Hill's favor is that the intention may or may not be as clear as it was with Almirola. But the point still stands. This is a driver whose decision-making has become a true hazard, whether it's because he gets randomly ticked off by somebody or because he's frustrated about being behind somebody.
NASCAR needed to do more after Indy. I'm not saying ban him for life or park him for the year. But obviously the threat of missing a single race isn't enough to deter this kind of driving from a driver who has unfortunately become known for it.