Richard Childress Racing's Austin Hill scored a total of 27 playoff points throughout the 26-race NASCAR Xfinity Series regular season, placing him behind only JR Motorsports teammates Connor Zilisch and reigning series champion Justin Allgaier in that category to open up the three-round, seven-race postseason.
The only thing is he didn't get to keep any of those 27 playoff points, so he opened up the playoffs sitting 12th and last among championship contenders, crucially below the cut line to advance to the round of 8.
Over the offseason, NASCAR enacted stricter rules regarding drivers who miss races in terms of their ability to secure playoff waivers. In an instance such as the one we saw in Mexico, where Denny Hamlin missed the Cup Series race at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez due to the birth of his third child, he was given a waiver and not docked any playoff points.
But NASCAR reserves the right to strip a driver of all playoff points earned during the regular season (before the absence and after) should they not see an absence as unavoidable. Hill's absence from the early August race at Iowa Speedway was certainly avoidable.
Austin Hill's suspension could ruin his season
After Hill hooked Aric Almirola in the right rear late in the race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway the previous weekend, NASCAR stuck to the precedent they set a few years back by issuing him a one-race suspension. Though he continues to deny that the move was intentional, NASCAR saw all they needed to see to come to the opposite conclusion.
Hill won three races (15 playoff points), six stages (six playoff points), and finished the regular season fifth in the standings (six playoff points). None of those 27 playoff points carried over into the playoffs, and now Hill finds himself on the outside looking in with one race remaining in the round of 12.
Even after a third place finish in the middle race of the opening round at Kansas Speedway on Saturday, the driver of the No. 21 Chevrolet finds himself in 10th place and seven points out of the eighth and final transfer spot to the round of 8, a spot notably held by teammate Jesse Love.
If not for the loss of 27 playoff points, Hill would be sitting in fifth place in the standings, 20 points above the cutoff heading into Saturday's race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval.
Crucially, even if Hill does manage to overcome this deficit and advance to the next round, he is once again set to start with no playoff points added to his total. He'd be eighth out of eight drivers with 3,000 points, rather than 3,027, meaning he'd have an even steeper climb to get into the Championship 4. For what it's worth, with 3,027 points, he'd actually be starting above the cut line.
While Hill is known as more of a superspeedway threat than anything else, he has proven to be capable of winning elsewhere and has been one of the few consistent race winners in the series from year to year, with multiple victories in each of his four seasons as a full-time driver.
But if he can't right the ship this weekend, a once promising season would come to an end simply because of his own ill-advised (and completely unnecessary) decision back in late July.
The Blue Cross NC 250 is set to be shown live on the CW Network from the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval beginning at 5:00 p.m. ET on Saturday, October 4. Start a free trial of FuboTV today and don't miss any of the upcoming Xfinity Series playoff action!