“Don’t Use Our Race-cars to Retaliate”: Austin Hill’s Penalty Triggers Kaulig President’s Response on Retaliation in NASCAR, Fans Chime In

Austin Hill is a talented race car driver but sometimes, his antics on track can rub people the wrong way. NASCAR recently handed out a hefty penalty to the Richard Childress Racing driver for intentionally wrecking Cole Custer at the Charlotte Motor Speedway on Saturday. According to Kaulig Racing’s Chris Rice, Hill’s team boss is not going to be happy about what his driver did in the heat of the moment.

“Richard Childress and myself agree on this, we talk about this a lot. Don’t use our race cars to retaliate on something somebody else did to you. You handle it outside the race car. Ricky Stenhouse, prime example. So I disagree, caution’s been out for a minute, you know end up wrecking. I disagree with that and as a team, I’m gonna be upset at my driver,” he said.

https://twitter.com/DirtyMoMedia/status/1795897519324512309

With just 17 laps remaining, there was contact between Hill and Custer which was unintentional but caused a lot of damage to both cars. The Richard Childress Racing driver, however, was not happy and he very intentionally kept pushing the #00 down the back stretch until he spun around and wrecked. NASCAR did not like that at all and slapped Hill with a $25,000 fine and a 25-point deduction.

The promotion might believe that they have taken the appropriate measure to reprimand Austim Hall but as far as fans are concerned, that is not the case.

Race fans slam NASCAR’s officiating decisions over the last two weeks

Fans on X expressed their opinion about the penalty and most believe that it doesn’t mean a thing. Hill has already made it into the playoffs so the points dock doesn’t mean anything as per some users. “Points don’t mean s**t when you’ve already won multiple races,” one of them commented.

The fine comes with the backdrop of NASCAR slapping a $75,000 fine on Stenhouse for punching Kyle Busch. With that in mind, one fan believes that the amount Hill has to pay for intentionally wrecking another competitor is not near as much as it should be. “So you can risk severely hurting someone and only get docked 25 points and 25K but you throw one punch and it’s 75K and marketing material?” they wrote.

So you can risk severely hurting someone and only get docked 25 points and 25K but you throw one punch and it’s 75K and marketing material?

— Slushy (@SlushyMist) May 29, 2024

“NASCAR is having the worst officiating week of all time,” another user wrote commenting on everything that happened in the last two race weekends. Inconsistent decisions by the sanctioning body are causing backlash and it will be something that NASCAR will have to be wary of in the future as well.