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Last off-season, NASCAR updated its playoff waiver rules to introduce a punishing new stipulation that would effectively destroy a suspended driver's regular season progress. Until last week, the series has avoided issuing any suspension that would trigger this rule. That changed as of Tuesday night, when Austin Hill was handed a one-race suspension for his actions during last Saturday's Xfinity Series race at Indianapolis.
Hill's suspension comes after a five-lap in-race penalty for his actions in a wreck involving Aric Almirola. The crash started when Almirola got up to Hill's rear bumper, causing him to slide out but not lose control. Hill then cut back down the track after seemingly saving his car from spinning, slamming into Alimrola's quarter panel and sending his opponent spinning. Almirola would later accuse Hill of intentionally wrecking him, and the five-lap penalty Hill was handed by NASCAR in-race suggests that the series agreed.
Because of the new rule, Hill's suspension includes a loss of all the playoff points he could accrue during the year's regular season. That includes 21 playoff points already earned, plus any others he could have claimed with race and stage wins over the next handful of races. That is a major hit in NASCAR's strange and over-complicated elimination playoff format, which carries playoff points (but not regular points) over through every round. Hill can still advance on in those elimination rounds — he will just have to do so without the help of the advantageous extra points he would have earned before the playoffs began.
The ruling against Hill is part of a years-long push by NASCAR to clean up intentional wrecks, which have become a major problem in modern stock car racing. Kyle Larson and Bubba Wallace have both received suspensions in the Cup Series for apparent intentional wrecks in recent years; Austin Dillon was not suspended for two different, seemingly intentional wrecks on the last lap of the regular season finale at Richmond last year, but he was effectively knocked out of the playoffs by a ruling determining that his win in the race did not count for postseason eligibility.
The series previously opted not to hand out suspensions to Cup Series driver Austin Cindric and Xfinity Series driver Sammy Smith, both of whom were docked 50 regular season points instead. The suspension of Hill suggests that NASCAR viewed the hit as more egregious, more dangerous, or both. Since Hill caused the crash on a straightaway at a very fast oval rather than on a short oval or road course, series officials would have an argument for either option.
NASCAR's second-tier Xfinity Series resumes with a race at Iowa Speedway on Saturday. Austin Hill, on the other hand, will be off until the race at Watkins Glen on August 9th.
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