HAMPTON, Ga.: NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series points leader Austin Hill look assured his first win of the season in Saturday afternoon’s Vet Tix | Camping World 200 at Atlanta (Ga.) Motor Speedway but a caution three laps from the finish derailed the opportunity for his fifth career win.
Hill emerged as the favorite to win the race following the final round of green-flag pit stops inside the final thirty laps of the race after a dominant Kyle Busch had multiple speeding penalties and made contact with a lapped truck erasing him from contention.
With his biggest challenger out of the mix, Hill’s No. 16 Hattori Racing Enterprises Toyota sailed away from the rest of the competition and kept challengers Ross Chastain and Chase Elliott many seconds behind him.
Looking like he would avoid any late-race shenanigans to claim the team’s second win at the 1.54-mile track in two of the last three years, Elliott’s No. 24 Hooters Chevrolet spun at the exit of Turn two, igniting the caution.
Knowing tires were at a premium, Hill brought the leaders to pit road where he kept the lead exiting pit road after getting four tires.
On the restart, Hill got a nice jump on the field but battling a tight No. 16 United Rentals Toyota Tundra exiting Turn 4, it allowed second-place Grant Enfinger in Turn 4 to get a run on the outside lane that allowed him to clean Hill exiting Turn 1.
From there, Hill attempted to swipe the lead from Enfinger but to no avail. Hill settled for his best Truck Series result this season with a second-place finish, 0.215 seconds behind Enfinger.
“All day on the restarts, it took our truck about five to seven laps to get going. We would be in the splitter a little bit, but as the tire wear came in and as the pace fell off, our splitter heights and everything were really good. There at the end, on that white flag lap going into turn one beside the 98 (Grant Enfinger), I drove in there deeper than I had all day.
“It got on the splitter a little bit and when it did, I just got tight and had to lift a little bit. I’ll take the blame on that one for not getting the win. We had a dominating Tundra. There at the end, we were just as good as the 51 (Kyle Busch) before he had his issues.”
After the race, Hill admitted that while his truck was super strong on the bottom of the race track, it took his truck several laps to settle in into the race track.
And while he had just two laps to fend off a hungry pack of wolves, Hill had hoped keeping his truck planted at the bottom of the race track – where it had been fastest the most would counteract.
It did not and Hill took responsibility for not getting the job done.
“I’m sure when I go back and watch the race, I’m just going to look at all different things that I could have done differently for that not to have happened,” added Hill.
“I saw that the 98 (Grant Enfinger) was getting a run on me down the backstretch, but we had been so good on the bottom all day, wrapping the line, that I didn’t really want to give that up and he was able to get to my corner on entry to three and he kind of got tight on my corner and sucked me around a little bit and that got me loose enough that I kind of just bogged down off of four. Maybe I could have protected that outside line a little bit more and made my truck just a little wider.
“I just think that when we go back to the drawing board, maybe I could have said something different to Scott (Zipadelli, crew chief) and the guys to maybe have a little better truck on that short run. It felt like our truck didn’t fire off good for five to eight laps, but after that, we were really dominant.
“I’m just going to go back and look at that and see what I could have done differently as a driver to tell the crew just so maybe that doesn’t happen again and I don’t get on the splitter like I did last time and get too tight.”
The upside?
Hill and Hattori Racing Enterprises head to Homestead-Miami Speedway next weekend with the points lead still intact and as the defending winner of the race. Hill led 56 of the 134 laps for his fourth and final win of 2019.
“I’m excited to go to Homestead,” sounded Hill. “We’re going to be good at Homestead.
“I think we have a really good truck there like we did last year. Hopefully, we can get a win and get locked into the Playoffs.”
Hill and his Scott Zipadelli led team are the only organization to score top-10 finishes in all four Truck Series races this season.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
