In what can only be described as a fuel fiasco, Austin Hill grabbed his second win of the NASCAR Xfinity Series at the Atlanta Motor Speedway this past Saturday. The Georgia native and Richard Childress Racing driver didn't just glide to victory; he capitalized on an overtime restart as his young teammate Jesse Love, who had been leading for a whopping 157 laps, saw his car run bone-dry, leaving him coasting to a 12th place finish. "Jessie ran an awesome race," Hill said in a statement obtained by Fox5 Atlanta.
In an unexpected turn of events, Hill, who had won the past three out of four Xfinity races in Atlanta, managed to clinch the lead during the high-stakes overtime. His victory dance came after a series of miscalculations on the track led to four other drivers, including Riley Herbst and Cole Custer, to suddenly run out of gas, prompting a caution and perfectly setting the stage for Hill to to boldly take over. "I just said, ‘Hey, I’m going to just run the shortest distance to the end and hope it's enough,’ and it was," Hill told Fox5 Atlanta.
Meanwhile, Love's shot at a first win was halted by his empty tank during the restart. "Obviously there was no way we were going to pit there," Love reflected in an interview. As the group reached for higher gears, his Chevrolet faltered, leaving Hill to sweep up the lead. "When we got up to third gear (in the restart) it died," Love lamented, according to coverage from Fox5 Atlanta. Hill noted that Love had likely burned more fuel by sitting in the lead for most of the race, making it harder for him to conserve.
Despite the victory's bittersweet taste, with his teammate's loss in the mix, Hill has revved up this season with an impressive two-for-two record, a feat not seen since Tony Stewart's dash in 2008, as reported by AP News. As the competitors gear up to quickly try and leave this race in the rearview, they're setting their sights on Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the next checkered flag on the March 2 horizon. With fuel strategy sure to be on everyone's mind, it's a safe bet to say Jesse Love and his team won't want to gamble with their gas gauge again.
