Elton Sawyer, NASCAR‘s senior vice president of competition, said Tuesday they “don’t see anything at this time” to suggest that Austin Hill will be penalized for wrecking Michael McDowell in this past Saturday’s Xfinity Series race at Watkins Glen International. Sawyer viewed it as a racing incident, though he acknowledged that some drivers made “some bad decisions” over the weekend.

“We don’t see anything at this time,” Sawyer said on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “I think all of those incidents this past weekend — we look at them, we start on Monday looking at all the data and even situations that have not been viewed by our audience and even teams. We take a much deeper dive into that and what I would say to this past weekend, there was some decisions made that I’m sure today and yesterday that drivers would look back on — hard racing, but probably some decisions that they look back on as not any intentional or malicious intent, but I do believe there was some bad decisions that were made.

“But that happens in racing from time to time. We’ve all been there and seen it. We’ll review all of that again, but I don’t see anything at this time that would rise to the level of any kind of points or suspension or money or anything. Maybe some conversations, but I don’t see anything deeper than that.”

Austin Hill reacts to 16-car wreck at Watkins Glen

Making his return from a one-race suspension, Hill was involved in another controversy. Racing against McDowell for P2 in Stage 3, Hill got to the inside of his left quarter panel. The two cars made contact, and McDowell slammed into the wall. Soon after, dirt was in the air and multiple cars came piling into the area.

In total, 16 cars were involved in the wreck, which brought out the red flag. Hill was adamant after the race that he didn’t wreck McDowell on purpose.

“Just two guys going for it. Nothing malicious, as much as everybody wants to sit there and try to make it more than it is. It was just two guys racing it out,” Hill said. “I was trying to get by the 88 [Connor Zilisch] as quick as I could because the 88 was driving away from us and thought that we could maybe have a shot at racing with him and racing for the win there. Had a massive run off the Carousel. I kind of thought I was trying to catch [McDowell] off guard and get to his left side.

“The grass was coming up in front of us. I had to get to the right. I was kind of hoping he was going to move to the right and kind of give me some room, and it just didn’t happen.”

Hill finished fourth at Watkins Glen. McDowell, making his first Xfinity start since 2016, finished 25th.