Insider counters Richard Childress fiery, defiant response to NASCAR

Richard Childress stood up for his driver, Austin Hill, after Saturday’s race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Hill found himself in trouble after he appeared to intentionally right rear hook Aric Almirola in retaliation with 10 laps to go in the race.

NASCAR issued a five-lap penalty to Hill and will conduct an additional review of the incident. Childress delivered a fiery response to NASCAR, saying he doesn’t believe Hill should be suspended.

“Hell no. They didn’t do a damn thing to the 2 car [of Austin Cindric] when they, he wrecked Ty [Dillon] and admitted to it,” Childress said. “Drove him in the right rear and wrecked him at COTA. It’s who you are. We’re a blue-collar team, they give us trouble all the time.”

The incident between Cindric and Dillon that Childress was referring to happened earlier this season at COTA. Jeff Gluck of The Athletic, in response to Childress, noted that NASCAR docked Cindric 50 points for right rear hooking Dillon. That particular incident happened on a road course, whereas this one occurred at a high-speed oval. Gluck believes NASCAR will view this one differently.

“RR at high-speed oval is going to be viewed as a lot different than a road course. It just is,” Gluck wrote on X. “I get Childress sticking up for his guy of course, but I honestly think the question NASCAR will look at here is one week or two?”

Austin Hill tells NASCAR to ‘go f*ck themselves’ at Indianapolis

If NASCAR suspends Hill, it would be detrimental to his playoff positioning in the Xfinity Series. Per NASCAR’s updated guidelines for playoff waivers, missing a race due to a suspension would result in a loss of all playoff bonus points. Hill currently has 21 playoff points, third most among drivers.

Hill, who finished 34th after serving the penalty, was furious with NASCAR. He claimed that he did not mean to wreck Almirola, who got him loose just seconds prior.

“Oh, they can go f*ck themselves. F*ck NASCAR,” Hill said on his radio. “That is f*cking bullshit… I’m f*cking sideways, I go to correct it back to the left. It’s locked to the left, and I run into the #19 [Almirola].”