Austin Hill and Cole Custer do not see the incident between them late in the Xfinity Series race at Charlotte Motor Speedway through the same prism.It sr
It started with contact between the two through the dog leg. Hill drifted up the track and clipped the right rear on the No. 00 driven by Custer. In response, Custer door slammed Hill on the straightaway and that cut a tire on the Richard Childress Racing No. 21. As a result, Hill slid up the track in the next corner and walled both cars.
Hill stayed in the throttle in protest and Custer stuck a thumbs up out the window. He stayed in the gas until turning Custer around in front of traffic.
After the race, which was won by Chase Elliott in the Hendrick Motorsports No. 17, both drivers expressed differing views on the incident.
“Everyone is on old tires or scuffs after we pitted and I’m like in a slide trying to stay off him,” Hill said. “His right rear maybe got the wall a little bit but then he completely wall us down the frontstretch so much that I had a right front go down getting down into 1.
“I drove it really deep, because I wanted to drive in there with him, not realizing I had a tire going down, and it turned right. I got a little carried down the backstretch not letting him go. For that, I apologize but I don’t apologize for racing him off 4. I do not know what he’s mad about. It’s not like he slammed the wall really hard or messed his car any. I guess he needs to go back and watch it.
“It was uncalled for for him to door us as hard as he did and then it takes both of us out.”
Hill said he’s never ‘had a problem with Cole’ and doesn’t know if there is one on his side. He called it weird and says maybe they need to have a conversation about it.
The defending champion had a different interpretation.
“He put me in the fence off 4 and we hit on the frontstretch because he, I was going to pinch him down and he decided to go up and side draft me and we hit again,” Custer said. “I don’t know if he cut a tire into 1 or what happened, but then he tried to kill me on the backstretch because he held the throttle until he wrecked our car, killed the clip and I slammed my head against the rear head rest and I don’t know.
“I know it was hard racing but at the end of the day, I don’t like getting intentionally wrecked and killed the clips on our race cars. It’s ridiculous. He wants to drive like a pissed off teenager and its ridiculous. That’s why … I’ve said enough, I think.”
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.