{"id":34626,"date":"2025-07-30T15:31:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T15:31:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/34626\/"},"modified":"2025-07-30T15:31:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T15:31:07","slug":"nascar-vp-elton-sawyer-explains-decision-to-suspend-austin-hill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/34626\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR VP Elton Sawyer explains decision to suspend Austin Hill"},"content":{"rendered":"

NASCAR<\/a> announced a one-race suspension for\u00a0Austin Hill\u00a0for Saturday\u2019s HyVee Perks 250 Xfinity Series race at Iowa Speedway. Hill\u2019s punishment came after he intentionally right rear hooked\u00a0Aric Almirola\u00a0in retaliation with 10 laps remaining in this past weekend\u2019s race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the time, NASCAR issued him a five-lap penalty for wrecking Almirola. They\u2019ve now dropped the hammer, and the suspension will be detrimental to Hill\u2019s bid to win the championship. <\/p>\n

Per NASCAR\u2019s updated guidelines for playoff waivers, missing a race due to a suspension results in a loss of all playoff bonus points. Hill had 21 playoff points prior to the suspension, third most among drivers.<\/p>\n

Now, NASCAR\u2019s Senior Vice President of Competition in Elton Sawyer is explaining what went into the decision. Weighing all of their factors, a one-race suspension was something decision-makers were comfortable with dishing out to Hill. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe take these very serious, and feel like, as stewards of the sport, it\u2019s our job to keep law and order. So on Saturday, when you witnessed that incident, immediately, it kind of jumped out as there was some retaliation. So, that\u2019s why we reacted at the track the way we did, in holding Austin for five laps there. Then once we, you know, we got back to the R-and-D center and started gathering more information, talked to Austin, talked to Aric, got their input. Continued to look at all available resources through camera angles and data that we could, you know, pull,\u201d Sawyer stated, via SiriusXM NASCAR Radio<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cLooked at it and felt like that fell into a bucket very similar to what we had dealt with a year or so ago at Las Vegas with Bubba [Wallace] and Kyle Larson, as well as what we dealt with at Charlotte with Chase Elliott and Denny Hamlin. So you know, as our team went through this, and we don\u2019t take these lightly, it took us a while to figure out exactly what the right thing was to do. That\u2019s our goal in each and every one of these situations, what\u2019s the right thing to do for the sport, for the garage area and for the integrity of our sport? It felt like, in this case it was, you know, a one race suspension.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Sawyer makes some salient points, it won\u2019t ease the concern of Hill\u2019s car-owner in Richard Childress. He delivered a fiery response to NASCAR over the weekend, believing his driver shouldn\u2019t be suspended<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHell no. They didn\u2019t do a damn thing to the 2 car [of\u00a0Austin Cindric] when they, he wrecked\u00a0Ty [Dillon]\u00a0and admitted to it,\u201d Childress said. \u201cDrove him in the right rear and wrecked him at COTA. It\u2019s who you are. We\u2019re a blue-collar team, they give us trouble all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regardless, Austin Hill will be missing this weekend\u2019s race in Iowa, and if the past is any indicator, the punishment fits the crime. Chase Elliott and Bubba Wallace have gone through it, and now the Richard Childress Racing wheelman will, as well. <\/p>\n

\u2014 On3\u2019s Nick Geddes contributed<\/a> to this article.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASCAR announced a one-race suspension for\u00a0Austin Hill\u00a0for Saturday\u2019s HyVee Perks 250 Xfinity Series race at Iowa Speedway. Hill\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":["post-34626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}