Every NASCAR national series has its own rabble-raiser. Carson Hocevar was so in the Truck Series – he also wreaked havoc in Cup this year, enraging Harrison Burton at Nashville. Similarly, Richard Childress Racing has Austin Hill in this specific role in the Xfinity Series. But Hill has entangled with one specific driver multiple times this year and their chaotic story is yet to end.

Shane van Gisbergen took the wheel of a full-time Xfinity car this year and oozed gold on road courses. Hill came in his way a few times, and Gisbergen answered back. However, Saturday’s Talladega race saw an external factor collecting them in a wreck – and still, Hill did not mince his words.

Austin Hill dejectedly reflects on his wreck

Back in April, Gisbergen led 20 laps at the Circuit of the Americas’ Xfinity race and controlled the final restart. However, Austin Hill traded paint with the No. 97 Chevy into the tight hairpin of Turn 1. SVG responded by running into Hill’s back bumper and both lost the race win to Kyle Larson. Then SVG had more to offer in Sonoma – he used his door to get into Hill’s inside and left the No. 21 Chevy dropping like a rock. These conflicts continued even at the United Rentals 250 race.

At Talladega, Shane van Gisbergen was running in the front row when a spinning Dean Thompson hit him in the left rear. That spun the 97 into the crowd, collecting Austin Hill in the process. Richard Childress’ star reflected on this mishap, at first talking about his own team. “The race kind of played out a little differently than years past…The way the runs were coming and how hard you can push people. They were coming pretty aggressively. You know, my car wasn’t driving the greatest when we started the race. The handling was definitely an issue. We got the car way better from stage 1 to stage 2 – won that second stage which was nice. And then stage 3.”

Then Austin Hill threw shots at the drivers in the wreck, and SVG was a part. “I kind of like got to the top…when we were all three-wide battling. Then some guys on our top lane were just kind of making some, I don’t know, dumb decisions I guess. It kind of hurt the top lane…started bleeding and we started falling back. I saw the bottom lane just kind of get a little antsy…Unfortunately, you can’t lift at that point, I’m leading the top lane. When that wreck happened in the front stretch, we just got into it, unfortunately.”

Conversely, even Hill’s rival waxed dejection following the Talladega brush-up, while Hill made peace with his result.

The grass is not so green on the other side too

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Shane van Gisbergen was on a hot streak at first. He put in a strong qualifying performance in eighth with a 53.037s time. Holding a top-ten place across the opening laps, he dropped to 23rd. But he soon reversed that in the second stage, shuttling from 22nd to 4th place. However, all his progress got lost as misery descended not long after when Thompson’s No. 26 came spinning straight into SVG’s car. It rotated 90 degrees and went into a collision course with Austin Hill, Taylor Gray, and others.

Gisbergen was visibly sad after the race. “I got pushed out of line and put myself in a bad spot. I thought I saved it and then some other stuff happened and I got caught up in it. That sucks. I am gutted for Kaulig Racing.” His rival, Austin Hill, could whip up some positivity after getting caught in the wreck. Hill said, “The guys on the 21 team never gave up, they bounced back. We patched it up. Probably could have finished a little bit better than what we did but I was expecting another wreck to happen…Just kind of played almost too safe. All in all a solid day for us…coming out of here, still gaining some points. That’s all you can really ask for at a place like Talladega.”

Evidently, both SVG and Austin Hill faced a miserable day at Talladega. Let us see if their conflict story still has a few chapters left this season.