NASCAR Suspends Austin Hill One Race For Intentionally Wrecking Aric Almirola
Hill will serve his suspension this weekend at Iowa Speedway. Austin Dillon will replace him in the Richard Childress Racing No. 21 Xfinity Series car.
"Richard Childress Racing will not appeal the penalty NASCAR issued to the No. 21 team following the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway," the team said in a social media post.
"We remain focused on winning a championship with Austin Hill in 2025."
The penalty is more than a suspension. A driver who is suspended loses all playoff points earned during the regular season. Playoff points help a driver advance in the three-race playoff rounds if they do not win.
Hill is fifth in the Xfinity Series standings and is ranked third in playoff points with 21 (not including the points he would earn by finishing in the top 10 of the regular-season standings).
The suspension was not a surprise, as NASCAR often suspends drivers for that type of retaliatory move on high-speed tracks.
Earlier this season, NASCAR did not suspend Austin Cindric but instead docked him 50 points and fined him $50,000 or a retaliatory hook on Ty Dillon in the Cup race at Circuit of the Americas. That incident has remained a topic of debate.
Hill said on the radio to his team that the accident wasn't on purpose. Almirola, speaking on the CW race telecast after the accident, said it was obvious that it was. NASCAR held Hill five laps after the incident for reckless driving.
"It was definitely intentional," Almirola said.
Almirola said he did make contact with Hill to force him to wiggle so Almirola could make the pass.
"I got him loose and he just turned left and hooked me in the right rear," Almirola said.
"[It was] honestly one of the biggest hits in my entire NASCAR career. Very reminiscent of the hit I took when I broke my back [in 2017 at Kansas]."
Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass. Get more from the NASCAR Xfinity Series Follow your favorites to get information about games, news and more
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Times
4 hours ago
- New York Times
Nottingham Forest's Zach Abbott on pestering Milenkovic, facing City and a valuable parking spot
At the age of 19, defender Zach Abbott has already started in an FA Cup semi-final against Manchester City at Wembley. He also played in Nottingham Forest's Carabao Cup tie against Newcastle United last August — but his biggest moment at the City Ground came in the final for the Premier League International Cup, an under-23 competition, in May, when the central defender calmly netted the winning penalty in the shootout against Lyon before being mobbed by his team-mates. WE'VE WON THE PREMIER LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL CUP! 😍🏆 #NFFC #PL #premierleague ♬ original sound – Nottingham Forest Abbott has been part of the first-team squad at Nottingham Forest for more than a year, having first trained with the senior group towards the end of 2023-24. But he has not let his rise alter his grounded attitude. Last season, one of the perks of being promoted to the first-team squad was being given his own parking space at the Nigel Doughty Academy. Advertisement Abbott can see the training ground from the window of his flat, just a few hundred yards away — but he still regularly drove to training, so he could give a lift to some of the other young players, who had not yet been given a space. A Premier League debut has not yet come, and the arrival of Jair Cunha from Botafogo in June has made Abbott's road to the Forest's first team more challenging. Fortunately, Abbott is not one to be intimidated by his rivals. Instead, he is determined to learn from them. Forest's central defensive duo, Murillo and Nikola Milenkovic, established themselves as one of the Premier League's best partnerships last season. Abbott, who was given a new contract in July that runs until 2029, has seen that as an opportunity, rather than a problem. 'I try to involve myself in everything I can. I try to learn from Murillo and Milenkovic,' Abbott told The Athletic. 'They are top of the top and it is brilliant picking little bits up off them, just being around them. I want to build my own play into becoming a Premier League player. 'They are all good characters (in the Forest dressing room), massively so. They take me under their wing. They know I have to make my own way, so there is a balance there. They let me make my own mistakes. But as soon as they see anything that they can help me with, they all jump in. 'Milenkovic has played in World Cups. That is where I want to be. What better way to get there than to be around him every single day? Players like him might get annoyed by the amount that I pester them and ask things. But I like to learn. 'I know I am going to be on my own at some point. I will not have people around me all the time. I need to learn these things myself, without always having people around me to help. If I can magpie little bits of information off these players now, while I have the opportunity, I am only going to improve, aren't I?' The experienced Willy Boly and another Brazilian, Morato, will also provide competition for Abbott, but the fact Forest will have the added challenge of European competition to contend with might work in his favour. Forest hope to be in a position where Nuno can change his entire team, should he choose to do so, in the Europa League. The Forest manager may also be tempted to switch to a three-man central defence at times. Abbott, who has represented England at every age group from under-16 through to under-19, remains a useful man to have around for another reason. In European competition, there is space for eight homegrown players in every 25-man squad — and four of those must be homegrown at the parent club. At Forest, Ryan Yates and Abbott are the only two first-team players to have come through the Nigel Doughty Academy, although backup 'keeper Aaron Bott would also qualify. Advertisement Yates has also been a mentor to Abbott in the dressing room. 'He is where I want to be. He is a figure who will help me with advice,' says Abbott. 'Even away from the pitch he will give me advice on how to deal with certain situations. He has taught me a lot.' Within the academy, Yates has long been the example the coaches point to when convincing youngsters of what is possible if they work hard. Increasingly, Abbott is being used as a reference point, too. At the senior level, Nuno has repeatedly described Abbott as a valuable 'option'. Abbott will go into the new campaign having learned a great deal, despite his relatively limited opportunities on the pitch. His most recent start — in that FA Cup semi-final at Wembley — saw him adapt to playing at right-back, rather than in the centre of defence. He let nobody down. He certainly played with sufficient composure to suggest he is ready to add to his three first-team appearances. 'I learned loads about myself. I learned that I can take that step and be at that standard. It is a confidence lifter, knowing that you go into things without fear and enjoy them. I want to play as many positions as possible, central defender, right-back, wherever… I just want to learn on the pitch,' said Abbott, who found himself up against City stars such as Omar Marmoush, Jack Grealish and Mateo Kovacic. 'You have to be confident and believe in yourself. You have to have the conviction that you are doing and saying the right things, while also being humble enough to learn from and respect your elders. People might believe that it is daunting going into a dressing room like that but I never felt that way. I relished it. I tried hard to get involved from the start. I think you have to do that. If you do not do that, you can fall away. 'Nuno is very helpful. He is very good. He always gives you useful information. He is somebody that you can learn a lot from. I learn a lot from his training and try to implement it into my game. When I do get called upon, I want to be able to perform to the best of my ability.'
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Yahoo
Crazy Iowa finish: Carl Edwards vs. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. from 2011
Relive this classic moment from Iowa Speedway that saw Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Carl Edwards crash at the finish of the 2011 Xfinity Series race.
Chicago Tribune
10 hours ago
- Chicago Tribune
Chicago Cubs make quick work of Baltimore Orioles in a 1-0 win on a busy day at Wrigley Field
An announcement that Wrigley Field will host the 2027 All-Star Game. Tributes to Ryne Sandberg. New players in the Chicago Cubs clubhouse after the trade deadline. Oh, yeah, and a baseball game was played. It was an eventful Friday afternoon at Wrigley Field, and the Cubs pulled off a 1-0 victory over the Baltimore Orioles in front of a crowd of 40,520 in a swift 1 hour, 49 minutes. Rookie Cade Horton (5-3) threw five shutout innings, allowing just two hits, and catcher Carson Kelly scored on Ian Happ's sacrifice fly to right in the second. The ball didn't appear deep enough for Kelly to score, but he raced home and Tyler O'Neill's throw was off the mark. 'It was second gear for me,' Kelly joked. 'You do anything you can to win a game. For this team and this city, you have to give it everything you've got every single night.' The Cubs (64-45) got four shutout innings from four relievers, including Andrew Kittredge, whom they picked up from the Orioles (50-60) in a trade before Thursday's deadline. Kittredge had his family with him on this trip and they moved from one hotel to another. The next day he was facing his former teammates in the seventh inning. He got his former batterymate Adley Rutschman to fly out to left and struck out O'Neill and Colton Cowser. 'Rutschman caught my last outing, and I felt like he might know what I was throwing,' Kittredge said. 'I'm glad I got through it and we got the win.' Horton hasn't given up a run since July 9. The 23-year-old has allowed no runs on eight hits in 16 innings in his last three starts, two of them wins. 'He's just very clearheaded out there and very focused,' Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. 'He doesn't let anything distract him from the next pitch. 'That's a very simple approach, but it's an advanced approach to be able to do that. For a young player in a new environment with extra stuff going around, Cade seems to be able to avoid all of that and block it out.' Horton said slowing down the game and focusing on one pitch has been his approach no matter the count or how many men are on base. But he knows he's on a roll. 'It's in the back of my head,' he said. 'But that's not going to help me go out there and pitch better. You still have to go out and do the work and execute pitches.' The crowd was treated to a pregame scoreboard tribute to Sandberg, who died Monday at 65 after a recurrence of cancer. This was the Cubs' first home game since the Hall of Fame second baseman's death. Former teammates Jody Davis, Shawon Dunston and Rick Sutcliffe delivered second base to the field in his honor. 'That was special,' Kelly said. 'I only got to spend a little bit of time with him, but the person he was and the player he was, I'm fortunate I got to meet him.' The ballpark observed 23 seconds of silence in honor of Sandberg's number, and a video of him and his family singing 'Take Me Out to the Ball Game' last season was shown during the seventh-inning stretch. The Cubs all will wear No. 23 jerseys with no names on the back for Saturday's 1:20 p.m. game against the Orioles in Sandberg's honor. Thursday's trade deadline brought four players to the Cubs: Kittredge, infielder/outfielder Willi Castro from the Minnesota Twins and pitchers Taylor Rogers from the Pittsburgh Pirates and Michael Soroka from the Washington Nationals. Castro, who has been in the majors since 2019, said he had played in every ballpark except Wrigley Field until last year. Now he will get to know the park well. 'It feels like I'm home,' he said. Before the game, the team optioned right-hander Gavin Hollowell and catcher Moisés Ballesteros to Triple-A Iowa. Soroka, who pitched for the White Sox last year, did not report to the team before Friday's game, but Counsell has him penciled in to start Monday against the Cincinnati Reds. Right-hander Jameson Taillon, who has been on the injured list since July 1 with a right calf strain, is pegged to throw a rehab start Sunday for Iowa. Right-hander Javier Assad, who hasn't pitched for the Cubs this season after suffering a left oblique strain in spring training, will pitch for Iowa again Wednesday. He gave up two runs (one earned) in 3 2/3 innings for Iowa on Wednesday against Indianapolis. Catcher Miguel Amaya, who also has a left oblique strain, was moved to the 60-day IL, but Counsell called that a 'paper move' to allow an extra 40-man roster spot. 'Everything is going well for him so far,' Counsell said of Amaya. 'He will continue in Iowa this week and then we will see where we are at.'
