NASCAR Xfinity Series race results: Austin Hill holds on for memorable Daytona win
Austin Hill loves Daytona, and Daytona appears to love him back.
The Richard Childress Racing driver won the first race of the 2023 Xfinity Series season Saturday night — dominating early, hanging on during a crazy finish and notching his second win at Daytona International Speedway in as many years.
It wasn’t without a bunch of drama, though. A caution prompted a late-race restart and forced overtime. The top of the pack was super tight — Hill, John Hunter Nemechek and Justin Allgaier vying for the top spot — and then, after the white flag was waved (marking the race’s last lap), the No. 1 car flipped and a caution came out.
When a caution emerges after the white flag, whoever is leading when the caution comes out is deemed the winner.
After a few moments of reviewing tape, NASCAR made it official — Hill had won at Daytona again.
“As soon as the caution lights came on, I thought I had it,” Hill told FOX Sports fresh after doing celebratory donuts on Daytona’s pristine infield. “To get back-to-back here at Daytona, it’s really special.”
Nemechek finished second. Allgaier finished third. Parker Retzlaff, who finished fourth, was the highest-finishing rookie.
Hill broke down the end of the race from his perspective in the Daytona International Speedway media center.
”When the 1 turned across my nose, I figured, ‘Caution’s out, race is over,’” Hill said. “But as soon as he turned across my nose, it allowed whoever was behind me — the 31, the 38, whoever the car was — it allowed them to get to my bumper, and they just never lifted, and they gave me a really big shot and started pushing me down the back.
“And I’m sitting there looking at the green light and looking at the 7 beside me to see when the yellow light’s gonna come up. And as soon as I saw the yellow light (illuminated), I looked left, and it looked like I was ahead of the 7.”
Hill later realized that he was racing against the 20 car (Nemechek), too — even though Nemechek was below the double-yellow line marking the racetrack’s apron.
“I was actually just thinking I was racing against the 7,” Hill continued. “I thought the 20 would get a penalty for going below the yellow. But I’m guessing the reason they let that slide was probably because the wreck happened, and he was trying to probably miss the wreck.”
Hill then smiled: “I gotta tell y’all: It was the longest — I don’t know how many minutes we sat there — that’s the longest I’ve ever sat in a racecar,” he said of the few minutes when NASCAR was reviewing who was in the lead when the caution came out. “I mean, I felt like I was in there for an hour. If you had a heart-rate monitor on me, it’s probably 190 out of my chest. Did we do it? Did we not? Like what is going on? It was such a relief to see we got it done.”
Hill knew he had a fast car — and he proved that early.
Hill qualified to start on the pole, but he took a trip down pit road before the start of the race to replace a broken radio. That pushed him to the rear to start the race. The driver of the No. 21 car didn’t seem to care, though: He rose through the field quickly, passing cars one by one and fending off a late run from Allgaier to win Stage 1. That made Hill think the race was “ours to lose,” he said.
In Stage 2, Hill finished third. But most importantly, he stayed in the race. Saturday night was relatively tame for a Daytona race, but there was still carnage: Eight drivers saw their days end early — most notably Daniel Hemric and Sheldon Creed, both of whom had promising runs before getting collected in wrecks they didn’t cause.
Allgaier won Stage 2, led 36 of the race’s 125 laps and competed against Hill all of Saturday. Did he enjoy the battle?
“Yeah, it was really fun,” he told reporters on pit road. “I mean, (Austin) did a great job. The team did a great job. You know, Chevrolet’s working together really hard, and they did a great job doing that.”
Hill did not qualify for Sunday’s Daytona 500, but Saturday’s Xfinity Series win helped make up for that, he said.
“As confident as I am on these superspeedways, it does burn that I’m not gonna be in the 500,” Hill said. “I truly believe that I could compete with all the Cup guys. I really think that I could go up there and race for a win. I’m not saying that out of cockiness or nothing, I just have that confidence in myself.”
He added: “You want to start the season off right, and we were able to do that the last two years. Now, we gotta put our foot down and win some more races throughout the year.”
Other notes from Daytona on Saturday
▪ Saturday’s Xfinity race featured 24 lead changes, 11 different leaders and eight cautions for 32 laps.
▪ The driver of the No. 1 car that flipped and prompted the last caution, Sam Mayer, was safely released from the racetrack’s infield care center.
▪ Before the Xfinity race, the ARCA Menards Series featured a bunch of laps under caution and a Greg Van Alst win at Daytona. The race’s most well-known competitor — former “Malcolm In The Middle” star Frankie Muniz — finished 11th.
Official results from Xfinity race
Saturday’s Top 10 is below. Visit NASCAR.com for full results. Post-race inspection is complete. No issues.
| Position | Driver | Car |
| 1 | Austin Hill | 21 |
| 2 | John Hunter Nemechek | 20 |
| 3 | Justin Allgaier | 7 |
| 4 | Parker Retzlaff | 31 |
| 5 | Matt Snider | 19 |
| 6 | Riley Herbst | 98 |
| 7 | Joe Graf Jr. | 39 |
| 8 | Ryan Sieg | 38 |
| 9 | Cole Custer | 00 |
| 10 | Justin Haley | 10 |
This story was originally published February 18, 2023 at 8:02 PM.
