Tempers Flare in NASCAR Xfinity Race, "He Tried to Kill Me on the Backstretch"
On a late restart in the NASCAR Xfinity Series Spring Race at Charlotte this Saturday, Cole Custer and Austin Hill were battling for fifth position when the two drivers collided off of turn four.
In a show of anger after being 'doored' by Custer and having his right front go flat, once Hill was locked into the back of Custer's No. 00, he kept the throttle down, causing his competitor a more high-speed spin and harder hit into the interior wall once freed.
While crashing, Custer was unsure of what, if anything, he did wrong and sarcastically stuck his thumb out of his window net.
Custer and Hill's crash set up the final restart of the race, and Chase Elliott would win his first Xfinity Series race since the 2016 season opener and bring the second win to Hendrick Motorsport's No. 17 entry; Kyle Larson brought the first back in March.
After the race, Frontstretch caught up with Custer to hear about the crash from his point of view, "He put me in the fence of [Turn] four, and we hit on the front stretch; I was going to pinch him down, and He decided to try and side-draft me, and we hit again. I’m not sure if he blew a tire into one or what happened to one. Then he tried to kill me on the backstretch. He held it full throttle until he wrecked our car and killed the rear clip, slapped my head against the back of the headrest."
Custer goes on to say that he's fine with racing the 30-year-old racer hard, but this was too far, "I know it was hard racing, but at the end of the day, I don’t like to be intensionally wrecked and "If he wants to drive like a pissed-off teenager, it's just ridiculous."
Going back to the initial crash, Hill was first to run Custer into the wall before the No. 00 came down hard, causing the day-ending damage to Hill. The driver of the No. 21 talked to Dustin Albino of Jayski after the race to explain it from his side but was left wanting more from the quality of reply available of the crash.
"The replay is not the greatest; they did a really good job of showing everything that was going on." Hill turns his head and mutters under his breath, "Not really.”
I came off of four, and everybody is on old tires, scuffs; when we came and pitted, I’m in a slide trying to stay off of him, and his right rear barely might’ve skimmed the wall it didn’t hurt his car any," Hill continued. "Then he completely lost his mind on the front stretch, doored me so hard that it cut the right front down.”
While Hill admits that him railing him down the backstretch was too big of a response but won't apologize for the racing leading up then.
“I got into him, and I probably got a little too carried away down the backstretch; I didn’t let him go, and that part I apologize about," Hill said. "I don’t apologize about racing him off of four. I do not know what he’s mad about.”
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