An intense duel for second between Michael McDowell and Austin Hill with less than 10 laps remaining in the Mission 200 at The Glen on Saturday ended in a massive crash that stopped the 82-lap race for 45 minutes while the track was cleared and retaining barriers were repaired.
No drivers were seriously injured in the 11-car pileup.
The chaos erupted on lap 74 as McDowell and Hill exited turn five and headed for turn six. Hill swung his Chevrolet wide on the outside of McDowell as they charged out of turn five and when he moved to return to the track, he clipped the left rear of McDowell’s car. That sent McDowell’s Chevrolet sailing across the track. It slammed into the barrier with such force that it threw the car back across the track and into the barrier on the opposite side.
A tire flew off McDowell’s car and landed on the hood of William Sawalich’s Toyota. Other cars were involved when they failed to stop before reaching the wreckage.
In addition to those already mentioned, the other drivers involved in the hellacious crash were Ryan Sieg, Taylor Gray, Jesse Love, Josh Bilicki, Kyle Sieg, Ryan Ellis, Jeb Burton and Jeremy Clements.
“I felt like I got two good restarts there and was able to take the lead clean,” McDowell said on the CW after being checked and released from the road course’s care center. “I didn’t rough up the 21 (Hill) at all I didn’t feel like, but it just kind of felt like he kept trying to move me there in the carousel. Then, I was all the way out, and he wasn’t even alongside. Just turned me. Just unfortunate, but that’s racing.”
While the race was stopped, CW analyst and former driver Jamie McMurray talked with Hill via two-way radio, and the Richard Childress Racing driver accepted the blame for the accident.
“The 11 (McDowell) had been struggling a little bit in front of me for a few laps through the carousel, across the middle on his exit,” Hill said. “I thought … I might could get to his left side and kind of have positioning getting into the left hander at 10. Obviously, I haven’t seen the replay, but I don’t know if I just wasn’t far enough along beside him. I know the grass was coming up. We ran out of real estate there.
“Hindsight, I probably should have just lifted and got back in line and lived to fight another corner. I hate it for everyone involved. That’s definitely not what I wanted to happen coming back from what we had going on.”
The Watkins Glen race was Hill’s first back after serving a one-race suspension for intentionally wrecking Aric Almirola at Indianapolis two weeks ago.
Hill said that earlier in the race he had gotten good runs off of turn five and he would get to his competitors’ right side. However, this time he went to McDowell’s left.
“As soon as I saw that he was staying tight to the grass, I probably should have lifted,” Hill said. “That was definitely just on me, just a driver error. The 88 (eventual winner Connor Zilisch) was driving away from us. I felt like that was one of those moves that I just needed to try to make a move as fast as possible on the 11 (McDowell) and destroyed a lot of race cars. It’s just really unfortunate.”
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