Austin Hill Wins in a wild sprint to the NASCAR O’Reilly Sequence Daytona Worldwide Speedway end on Saturday within the United Leases 300.
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Austin Hill continued his mastery of NASCAR’s large tracks by dominating Saturday’s United Leases 300 at Daytona Worldwide Speedway – the Georgia native’s fourth win on this NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Elements Sequence season-opener right here within the final 5 years.
Austin Hill Wins at Daytona
And, so usually occurs on Daytona’s 2.5-mile superspeedway, the end result got here all the way down to the dramatic previous few laps, and the race was determined by a cut up second.
Though he began from pole place and led a race-high 78 of the 120 laps, Hill was examined all evening, in the end prevailing on three restarts within the last 12 laps. His No. 21 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet beat 2024 season champion, JR Motorsports driver Justin Allgaier in one other Chevrolet to the end line by a slight 0.081 seconds.
The win marks the famed Richard Childress Racing group’s fifth consecutive win on this race, tying a mark set by Dale Earnhardt Inc. from 1990-94. It was Hill’s fifteenth profession victory and eleventh on a drafting type monitor.
Even after holding the lead for many of the occasion, Hill stated he had some considerations following a mid-race inexperienced flag pit cease – saying post-race that at one level he was pretty sure he would find yourself on a wrecker unable to deal with the tight draft and aggressive pushes the conclusion of this race so usually consists of. He dropped again to twelfth, however the brand new tires he took and a few alternative maneuvering landed him proper again into the combo up entrance.
“Simply exhibits how good this group is,” Hill stated of having the ability to pit late and out of sequence however nonetheless transfer ahead when it mattered most. “It was a extremely powerful choice to go from being 14th or wherever it was we restarted. But it surely simply goes to indicate how good this group was. We had that re-start, and nobody was going center, so I used to be like, ‘Certain, I’ll take it.’ Drove proper up by way of there.”
On the ultimate restart with two laps remaining, Hill stated he thought he might have misjudged one transfer, however …
“Fortunately, I used to be capable of make the block on the [number] seven [Allgaier], virtually missed the block, and needed to save the automotive. After that, it was simply hammer down and hope they didn’t get again to me.
“Daytona has simply been so good to me,” stated Hill, who swept each stage wins along with main probably the most laps. “I like this place, and it’s at all times enjoyable to win.”
RSS Racing owner-driver Ryan Sieg completed third regardless of being caught up in a mid-race incident. One other owner-driver, Jordan Anderson Racing’s namesake, Jordan Anderson, was fourth, adopted by Allgaier’s JR Motorsports teammate Sammy Smith.
Ryan Ellis, Carson Kvapil, Blaine Perkins, Hill’s teammate, Jesse Love, and Rajah Caruth rounded out the highest ten.
Jesse Love is Searching for Higher Outcomes
Love led 27 laps, second solely to Hill, however acquired caught up within the frantic last laps – his ninth-place exhibiting not actually indicative of his night.
“On the finish, I really feel for my guys,” Love stated. “They wish to be the place that 21 group [Hill] is. I’m nonetheless a step behind Austin. He’s so nice at this craft. I really feel like he’s a little bit extra affected person than I’m proper now, and I feel that’s what my studying lesson is after tonight.
“I feel I simply wasn’t affected person sufficient after I actually wanted to be, you recognize, taking Sammy three vast most likely wasn’t the appropriate transfer there. Made another strikes alongside the best way in waning laps that I might have accomplished about. I’ll look again at it and study from it, and subsequent week is the same type of move of issues. I’ll attempt to take this studying lesson and produce that to Georgia.”
Subsequent Up
The NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Elements Sequence strikes to Atlanta’s EchoPark Speedway for Saturday’s Bennett Transportation & Logistics 250. The race begins at 5 p.m. ET on The CW, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. The 31-year-old Georgia native, Austin Hill, is the defending race winner and has received 5 of the final seven races at his dwelling monitor.
