Austin Hill: Xfinity Series drivers ‘lose our minds’ at Martinsville

Austin Hill was victorious during last weekend’s NASCAR Xfinity Series trip to Martinsville Speedway. However, his win was far from the topic of conversation after the race and in the days following, due to the chaotic nature of the event.

A myriad of wrecks and a lack of respect for the competition throughout the field left drivers, media members and fans alike disgusted with the performance the Xfinity Series put on in Virginia. It’s not the first time they’ve been a bit unruly at Martinsville, and Hill tried to make sense of it as the wheelmen look to turn the page.

“I stand strongly on the side of for whatever reason when the Xfinity Series goes to Martinsville, we just lose our minds,” Hill said, via Toby Christie of Sports Illustrated. “But everywhere else, we are the best racing in NASCAR. And I strongly stand behind that we are the best series in NASCAR. Just when you go to Martinsville, we look like we don’t know what we’re doing.

“We’re going to get through it. We have, whatever it is, seven [or] eight months before we go back to Martinsville, I’m hoping a lot of things change between now and then.”

While Hill takes a ton of pride in the racing at the Xfinity Series level, he recognizes that they need to improve at Martinsville. The short track just creates some anarchy whenever it’s time to take the green flag there. It’s going to take everyone to improve the quality of racing there though, and the 30-year-old understands that sentiment.

NASCAR does too. They’re trying to utilize penalties to discourage Xfinity Series wheelmen from racing that way moving forward. Sammy Smith has been fined $25,000 and docked 50 points for wrecking Taylor Gray, a decision that sent the race to overtime over the weekend into complete chaos.

In further fallout from the chaos, Gray and Jeb Burton were also fined $5,000 for going into the infield care center to confront other drivers after the race. Naturally, given the way things unfolded, tensions were high.

Smith especially will be feeling the sting for quite a while. The driver who got aggressive going into Turn 3 will drop from sixth in the points standings to 13th. That’s a sizable penalty for his infraction.

Time will tell if NASCAR’s decision-making will lead to cleaner racing at Martinsville and a variety of other short-tracks for the Xfinity Series moving forward. Austin Hill is a veteran of the series, and he’s seen it all — he makes some good points, and it’ll be up to him to help lead the field and race with more respect over the remainder of 2025.

— On3’s Thomas Goldkamp contributed to this article.