There were two high-profile wrecks in the NASCAR Xfinity Series at Watkins Glen. One involved Connor Zilisch and the other Austin Hill.

For different reasons, both wrecks drew plenty of scrutiny. But at least one NASCAR insider, Jeff Gluck of The Athletic, thinks Zilisch got off a little light for his wreck of Shane van Gisbergen with about 15 laps to go.

“Zilisch, prior to (his fall), the story even though he won his sixth race of the year, a lot of the story afterwards was going to be people asking him about the contact he had with SVG,” Gluck said. “Because he wrecked SVG.”

Connor Zilisch went wide coming out of Turn 6, making his approach to Turn 7 a little difficult. Van Gisbergen gave him absolutely no room to work with.

That prompted Gluck to wonder about the ethics of letting a driver back on the track. Was van Gisbergen at least partially at fault?

“I mean, you could say, TV, Jamie McMurray made a really strong argument in terms of like, ‘Hey, SVG’s got to give a lane to let Zilisch back on the track after he had gone wide in that corner there,’” Gluck said. “Is that a thing? Who says you have to let a driver back in? Now I guess the alternative is if you don’t let him back on the track, you may yourself get wrecked. But ethically do you have to leave a lane for a driver to re-enter? Why can’t that driver just slide in behind you?”

The Connor Zilisch takeout of van Gisbergen benefited from Zilisch’s mostly sterling reputation on the track. Austin Hill‘s wipeout of Michael McDowell — and nearly half the field — did not.

“I think Zilisch being Zilisch actually got kind of the benefit of the doubt there,” Gluck said. “Where like Austin Hill in his incident certainly did not get the benefit of the doubt. I do not think Austin Hill intentionally wrecked Michael McDowell. What I do think is Austin Hill made a bad judgment there. But that wasn’t the same as, ‘I’m going to intentionally right-rear somebody,’ which by the way (Zilisch) denied this week to Dustin Albino of Jayski.”

Racing against Michael McDowell for P2, Austin Hill got to the inside of his left quarter panel. The two cars made contact, and McDowell quickly 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 this wreck. Several days were ruined.

Gluck was surprised that Hill, like Connor Zilisch, was as aggressive as he was. Unlike Zilisch, Hill entered with a reputation on the decline, following his recent suspension for an intentional clear-out of Aric Almirola.

“I think the Austin Hill thing, now if I was Austin Hill coming back after all that, you would have thought for one race you mind your Ps and Qs,” Gluck said. “You make sure that you don’t run anybody over, you don’t knock Zilisch over on a restart. You do not cause a 45-minute red flag by destroying McDowell and, by the way, Ryan Ellis.”

The destruction for Ellis was pretty complete. And it co uld have been much worse. Connor Zilisch’s wreck of van Gisbergen aside, as well as his post-race fall, Hill’s contact with McDowell to trigger a huge wreck was probably the story of the day.

Ellis took it worse than most. Gluck explained.

“The car pretty much went through his windshield,” he said. “And he said that’s a radio dead zone, they don’t have spotters in that area anyway. And he tweeted he saw dust and then he saw a car flying in that came in through his windshield. I mean he got lucky. That was a really, really, really bad wreck.

“So you would have thought if you were Austin Hill, regardless of, ‘Hey, I’m still gonna race hard.’ Which he said, ‘I’m not gonna change anything.’ He didn’t. I probably would have for one week. I’m just saying if it was me. But that’s why I’m not a racecar driver, I guess.”