NASCAR XFINITY SERIES: BEEF.IT'S WHAT FOR DINNER.300

February 19, 2022

Richard Childress

Austin Hill

Press Conference

An Interview with:

THE MODERATOR: We will get started with our race winners for today's NASCAR Xfinity Series Beef. It's What's For Dinner. 300 here at Daytona International Speedway. We are joined by our race winner Austin Hill, driver of the No. 21 Bennett United Rentals Chevrolet and team owner Richard Childress.

Q. What's it about the season opening race at Daytona with a new team? Why does it suit you so well?

AUSTIN HILL: I don't know. I don't know what the deal is there. I have never really saw myself as a superspeedway racer, honestly, but if you look back at results and look at kind of how I've ran the past couple years, the finishes and kind of where I'm running has shown that I kind of get around superspeedway racing decent.

RCR and Andy Street and just all the guys back at the shop, they prepared a very fast Chevy Camaro. The ECR engines were screaming tonight. We were just in the right position at the right time. I was trying to plan my move when I needed to, and it just all worked out.

It was one of those things that was kind of the perfect storm happened. I kind of planned my move down off of Turn 2 and down the backstretch and got a really good run from the 98, was able to cross over the 16 and then the wreck happened, and we were just enough ahead.

It was just one of those things that just happened in the right place, right time, and yeah, it's hard to put it into words what this means to me. It's been something that's been in the works for some years now, and to finally have this happen, I expect big things to come going ahead into the deep part of the season and especially into the playoffs.

Q. Richard, how big do you think Austin's season can be? He said after the race that he came to RCR for one reason and that's to win races. Started off pretty well; what do you think his potential is for the rest of the year?

RICHARD CHILDRESS: Well, that's the reason we brought Austin over. We knew he could win. I've been watching his talent for several years in the trucks, and even watching him in some of the Xfinity races, and I knew that he has the talent to win. This won't be the last one; I'll predict that.

Q. Austin, you were with a championship-caliber team in the Truck Series for a few years there and got close to the Championship 4 a couple times. Why was this the time to take this gamble, and how important is it to start this new venture here in Victory Lane?

AUSTIN HILL: Yeah, so the playoffs have kind of eaten me alive in a sense on the truck side. It seemed like we were always really good throughout the season, and then when it came down to the last part of the playoffs, we'd miss it by a couple points here or there on making it into the Final Four.

I've definitely learned a lot over the last three years going into the playoffs that I think I can take forward into the Xfinity Series, and I had been wanting to move up for some years now and to run Xfinity Series, but there's been talks and times that we've talked in here where I'm like, hey, I want to move up, but I want to do it in my terms, I want to do it with the right team and right people and organization around me, and I feel like Richard Childress and Richard Childress Racing is that type of organization that I wanted to be around because they're very family oriented. I'm very family oriented, and that's what I love about this team. They're always there for you.

I think that's why this organization just works for me, and hopefully we can work together for a lot of years to come.

Q. Austin, to me it was like your first race with a big team in the Truck Series with a funded team that had a lot of money, there was a win here at Daytona, and then your first Xfinity win is in the same thing, right out of the park with RCR. Which one do you think is a bigger win? I know those are hard to rate, but does one stand out as a bigger moment in your career?

AUSTIN HILL: Yeah, that makes it tough just because nobody knew who I was when I won back in 2019. You had all the haters, had all the people talking, oh, that's going to be the only win he gets, he's only going to win at a superspeedway and he's not going to get the job done anywhere else. I thought that '19 was a really big win, but it's hard to beat Xfinity, winning in the Xfinity Series. You're one level up from the truck level. I think it means a little bit more.

I think people take me a lot more serious nowadays, especially seeing how I've ran the last three years in the Truck Series, so I think people are going to take me a lot seriously when it comes to the Xfinity level, and I think I'm going to gain respect a lot faster than I did in the truck level.

I can't thank Bennett enough for coming on board with us, United Rentals, Global Industrial, Alsco. We have a lot of great partners this year, and being able to work with Chevrolet this year has been great already. ECR engines, they've been great to work with. I've met so many new people and met so many new faces. I'm still trying to learn everybody. But this has been a fun journey, a fun off-season, and I think this season is going to be one for the books.

Q. Austin, you got the win, you're in the playoffs; what's that feel like?

AUSTIN HILL: Yeah, so that takes a lot of weight off your shoulders because now you can go to Fontana and you still want to get stage points, you still want to get your first two stage points out of the way and rack up the points for the championship run, but it definitely takes weight off your shoulders. You can go to the racetrack and not feel like, man, I need to run really well this weekend and stack up points or this or that.

Like I said on the radio right after the race, I came to RCR for one thing and one thing only, and that's to win races. We got one under our belt, and we expect a lot more.

I know RC, he made the comment in a meeting that we had before the season, he wanted me to win two races. Well, we got one under the book, and I expect a lot more than two to come, that's for sure. He also owes me a little elk hunt. He told me if I won a race this year we'd go elk hunting, so I'm going to keep beating him up on that offer now.

RICHARD CHILDRESS: I said at least two races.

AUSTIN HILL: That's right, at least, at least.

Q. I'm doing a story on Sheldon Creed. What do you feel like he brings to the organization as you revamp this organization on the Xfinity level?

RICHARD CHILDRESS: With Sheldon Creed? I think they're going to make two great partners out there racing. I seen it tonight. Sheldon has got a lot of talent, as well, and I think we'll see a lot out of him. I'm excited. I'm as excited about the Xfinity as I was when we had Tyler come in and we won a championship with him and backed it up. It's just cool to have these caliber of drivers in there.

You know, tonight we're all blessed that Myatt Snyder is safe and okay, and that was on our hearts and minds until we heard he was out of the car.

Q. How long did it take before you knew for sure that you were the winner, and did you have any question that you were?

AUSTIN HILL: Yeah, so right when I saw the wreck happen behind me, I looked down and I'm watching the green light, and I'm waiting on it to flash yellow, I'm like, come on, flash yellow, flash yellow, and it finally flashes yellow and I look over and we're like a half a car length ahead. I was like 95 percent sure that we had won the race. But obviously until you hear that it's official, you still have a little bit of jitters, you're a little nervous, you don't know what the outcome is actually going to be.

When they finally said it, man, I got hoarse real quick. I started screaming and yelling on the radio and just started shaking and I bet my heart rate was through the roof.

It meant that much to me to get the job done here tonight, and like RC said, I'm glad that everybody was okay. I didn't realize how bad the wreck actually was until like 10 or 15 minutes ago they were talking about how bad Myatt's wreck was and everything that happened. So it's great to see what NASCAR does on the safety aspect of things. I think they do a really good job on safety and keep us drivers safe in the race car when things like that happen.

Q. Richard, with you going back to two cars in Xfinity this year, I'm curious, what are your thoughts on the overall health and strength of the Xfinity Series right now compared to where it's been historically over the last 20 years or so?

RICHARD CHILDRESS: I think there's a tremendous group of talented drivers in it this year, and you're going to see some great racing. I think the strength of Xfinity is really strong. We've got at RCR two great drivers, got great sponsors, and we're excited to be back with two cars this year.

Q. At the end there you were mixing it up with Noah Gragson, Riley Herbst, AJ Allmendinger. At Daytona knowing a wreck like that could end the race at any moment, are you trying to time your move to the stripe or are you trying to get ahead just to be ahead as soon as possible in case something like that happens?

AUSTIN HILL: Yeah, when it came down to about 10 laps to go, I already had it set in my mind that I wasn't going to make a move until off of Turn 2, and if a wreck happened before then, then it just wasn't meant to be when we took the light.

When I saw the 9 go to the bottom, I went to go block, and he had such a big run, I was like, oh, I don't think that's the right thing to do because I thought I might get turned or something, so I stayed in that second lane and I kind of thought we were out of it a little bit. I thought the bottom lane was going to prevail there. But the 98 worked really well with me those last couple laps.

Then coming to the white the inside lane was moving pretty good but I was able to kind of suck the 9 back a little bit, and off of 2 I was able to get the 98 kind of hooked up to me, gave me a really good push down the backstretch and I was able to time it exactly how I envisioned it in my head. The thing that helped me the most was the 16 coming off of Turn 2; he had like a two- or three-car-length gap and he got way too far out in front. When I had that run on him there was nothing he could do to block the run that I had because I was going so much faster than he was.

I was able to cross him over, and it just happened exactly how I had envisioned it. If the wreck would have happened a car length before when I made the move, then you'd be sitting here talking to AJ.

It just happened the exact way that it needed to happen for me to get the job done tonight.

Q. Myatt was driving that 2 car for you last year, so to see him go through that accident tonight, did you have any conversations or what was your reaction seeing him go into the fence and have that crash? What was your reaction after the race?

RICHARD CHILDRESS: Like I said earlier, we were just wanting to make sure he got out of the car. That was one of our cars we had last year here, and those cars are built, believe it or not, and designed when they get in those accidents for things to happen. The roll cage, the seats, everything in that car stayed together like it was designed. Yeah, it tore some of the stuff off, but those cars are designed a little bit to come apart.

THE MODERATOR: Austin and Richard, congratulations, and thanks for joining us tonight.