Austin Hill steals the win at Daytona: Clinches 2022 Xfinity Series Playoffs

 

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    The 2022 "Beef. It's What's for Dinner" 300 was nothing but a thrilling race, as the NASCAR Xfinity Series season opening race should be. Rookie of the Year contender Ausitn Hill made a last lap pass on veteran AJ Allmendinger to win the race at Daytona International Speedway, locking his ticket early to the NASCAR playoffs.

Starting off the pole, now defending champion Daniel Hemric would lead 38 total laps and win both the first and second stages, getting a head start on Playoff points. Nine different drivers would swap the lead spot 18 times in the 120-lap event:

• Daniel Hemric, No. 11 Chevrolet (38 Laps)
• Austin Hill, No. 21 Chevrolet (23 Laps)
• AJ Allmendinger, No. 16 Chevrolet (18 Laps)
• Noah Gragson, No. 9 Chevrolet (12 Laps)
• Brandon Brown, No. 68 Chevrolet (12 Laps)
• Josh Bilicki, No. 36 Chevrolet (10 Laps)
• Ty Gibbs, No. 54 Toyota (3 Laps)
• Joe Graf, Jr, No. 07 Ford (3 Laps)
• Josh Berry, No. 8 Chevrolet (1 Lap)

The first caution flag of the day came out when Drew Dollar spun on the backstretch during lap 14, He also collected the No. 51 of Jeremy Clements, ending both of their days. The race would go green until the end of Stage 1, and no cautions were brought out for the length of Stage 2. 

The final stage was fairly low-key, until Sam Mayer lost parts off of his car, bringing out a caution on lap 85 for debris on the track. When NASCAR lined the drivers up to go back under green, half the cars made it passed the green flag when "the big-one" happened on the front stretch. The incident collected a total of 10 cars, including race-long dominate driver Daniel Hemric.

After NASCAR cleaned up that mess, the field when back to a 22-lap green flag run that would get them past the white flag, only to have disaster on the backstretch.

Myatt Snider became victim to the classic superspeedway, "drafting-gone-wrong" type of incident. Snider's No. 31 Chevrolet took a sharp right turn into the SAFER barrier, going airborne and shredding the car to pieces from the catchfence. Luckily, he would walk away from the wreck, which is another reminder how much NASCAR has gotten safer to compete in.

The caution flag would fly before anyone could reach the checkered flag, and Austin Hill was deemed the leader when NASCAR threw the caution for Snider's wreck. Hill had just passed AJ Allmendinger before the caution lights were turned on, adding to Allmendinger's "bad luck" streak at the track.

Below are the complete race results for the 2022 "Beef. It's What's for Dinner" 300:

NASCAR.com

Winning in his 16th start in the series, and his first at Richard Childress Racing, the future could be bright for Austin Hill's NASCAR career. Whether he stays in the RCR camp, in an RCR affiliated team, or even swaps to a completely different team or manufacturer; I feel Hill has plenty of success in front of him if he so chooses that path.