NASCAR Xfinity Series driver Austin Hill. Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

NASCAR official explains reasoning for Austin Hill's suspension

By Samuel Stubbs | Last updated Jul 30, 2025 8:41 PM ET

After intentionally wrecking Aric Almirola in the closing laps of the Pennzoil 250 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Austin Hill was suspended on Tuesday and will sit out Saturday's race at Iowa Speedway.

On Wednesday, Elton Sawyer, NASCAR's Senior Vice President of Competition, appeared on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio to explain the reasoning behind Hill's penalty.

"We take these very serious and feel like, as stewards of the sport, it's our job to keep law and order," Sawyer said. "On Saturday, when you witness that incident, immediately it kind of jumped out at us that there was some retaliation. That's why we reacted at the track the way we did."

️ "We take these very serious."#NASCAR's Elton Sawyer joined #TMDNASCAR and gave the sanctioning body's reasoning for suspending Austin Hill for one race following his incident at @IMS.

More → https://t.co/MKhd9eLpQA pic.twitter.com/QzDmHvKbGx
— SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Ch. 90) (@SiriusXMNASCAR) July 30, 2025

Hill was given a five-lap penalty for reckless driving during the race immediately following the crash.

"Once we got back to the R&D Center (and) started gathering more information, talked to Austin, talked to Aric, got their input, (we) continued to look at all available resources — camera angles, data that we could pull, and looked at it and felt that fell into a bucket very similar to what we dealt with a year or so ago at Vegas with Bubba (Wallace) and Kyle Larson, as well as what we dealt with at Charlotte with Chase Elliott and Denny Hamlin," Sawyer said.

Wallace was suspended for one race in October 2022 after he intentionally right-rear hooked Larson in a Cup Series playoff race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. In May 2023, Elliott was suspended for one race after he intentionally right-rear hooked Hamlin in the Coca-Cola 600.

"We don't take these lightly," Sawyer said. "It took us a while to figure out what the right thing was to do. That's our goal in every single one of these situations. We felt like, in this case, it was a one-race suspension."

Samuel Stubbs

Hailing from the same neck of the woods as NASCAR Hall of Famer Mark Martin, Samuel has been covering NASCAR for Yardbarker since February 2024. He has been a member of the National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) since October of 2024. When he’s not writing about racing, Samuel covers Arkansas Razorback basketball for Yardbarker

More must-reads: