Austin Hill Has No Qualms With Ross Chastain’s Last Lap Move, as Long as It’s Fair Both Ways

The 2026 Bennett Transportation & Logistics 250 is done and dusted, and in his first part-time Xfinity outing of the year at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Ross Chastain has the garage buzzing, owing to his last-lap fireworks. In the end, Sheldon Creed took the trophy, but the win actually fell into his hands after Chastain and Austin Hill tangled while fighting for the lead.

Hill took the lead from Chastain at the white flag as the Cup driver did not block him, but Chastain lined up a run down the backstretch. But as Chastain was trying to take a pass, Hill blocked, and eventually, Chastain barely touched the back bumper of his car, and the moment went sideways along with Hill. The #21 driver looped it just enough, and Creed shot through the gap to grab his first win.

In the post-race scrum, Hill weighed in on the chaos, pointing the finger at Chastain while keeping his cool. The No. 21 Richard Childress Racing driver said, “When Ross is behind you, I expect to put firewall deep in the wall. I mean, that’s just the things that he does. So, unfortunate.”

Then came the mirror talk. Hill replayed the last lap in his head and owned his part, saying, “Looking back on the last lap, I probably could have done things a little bit differently. I probably got a little too far out off of two.”

“I think the #32 did a good job of backing up to the double zero. And then I probably could have, when I went to throw the block, I could have squared up better to him instead of, like, letting him still be left of me. And he got into my left rear and just didn’t lift. I mean, it’s the last lap. I wouldn’t have lifted either, probably. Unfortunately, we lost the race. He didn’t win the race either in his sixth or whatever it was.”

As for settling it with Chastain, Hill didn’t dance around it. “I could care less to talk to Ross Chastain I have nothing to say to him. Just as long as if the roles are reversed and I do the same thing to him, that he thinks it’s a fair game.”

Hill also tipped his cap to his own save, noting that he could have speared the wall head-on, but gathered it up and dragged home a 12th-place finish.
He knows the score. Blocks can pay off, until the bill comes due. Various tracks have handed him plenty of wins and positions with that move, but this time the gamble rolled snake eyes.

Chastain, for his part, called letting Hill by before the run a business decision, leaning into his rep for elbows-out racing, then second-guessed it once the contact spun Hill and handed the win to Creed.