Hill wins again at Atlanta to sweep Xfinity Series season at home track

HAMPTON, Ga. (AP) — Austin Hill swept the Xfinity Series season at Atlanta Motor Speedway, his home track, as the Georgia native continued to excel under the venue reconfiguration.

Since moving to the drafting track configuration in 2022, Hill has won three of the five Xfinity races at Atlanta. The other two winners — Cup Series regulars Ty Gibbs and John Hunter Nemechek — were not in Saturday's race.

“It had plenty of speed, we had to dig deep for that one,” said Hill, who won in a Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing. He did his post-race interview holding his young son, who was wearing a Georgia Bulldogs shirt.

“This is Barrett,” Hill introduced his son as the youngster kept interrupting, ‘Dad, you won.’

“And he's wild,” Hill continued.

It was the third win of the season for Hill, who opened with back-to-back Xfinity races at Daytona and Atlanta, but then went winless until Saturday. Hill led one time, for the final 21 laps of the race.

Parker Kligerman finished second, and AJ Allmendinger was third in a podium sweep for Chevrolet.

Chandler Smith and Corey Heim were fourth and fifth for Toyota, and Smith was angry he wasn't more selfish and had expected help from Heim. Instead, as Hill and Smith raced for the late lead, Heim worked with Hill and pushed him past Smith to the win.

Lawless Alan in 13th was the highest-finishing Ford driver.

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AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

Jenna Fryer, The Associated Press