History made at Xfinity Talladega but a lot to unpack

Austin Hill is now the winningest driver on superspeedways in the NASCAR Xfinity Series but there is a lot to unpack in terms of both how he got there and what that meant on Saturday at Talladega Superspeedway.

For one, a superspeedway race once again ended with a caution after the white flag and by race control determining the leader at the exact time of caution.

That was Hill in a three-wide photo finish on the backstretch with Jesse Love and Jeb Burton. The race ended because a race leading Connor Zilisch spun off the nose of Love, his best friend, the contact sending his JR Motorsports No. 88 hard into the wall.

Even Hill’s new record comes with a complicated caveat because it now include post renovated Atlanta Motor Speedway, which is something of a diet superspeedway designed to mimic Daytona and Talladega.

In short, a lot to unpack.

Love and Zilisch are legitimate best friends. That’s not hyperbole. They raced hard up front for the lead throughout much of the second half. There was a somewhat lighthearted ‘bro code violation’ moment between them.

But by no means did Love want to crash Zilisch. Love even ran to the infield to care center to make sure there were no injuries. Zilisch was cleared.

After the race, he climbed out of the car, and was told by MRN Radio’s Alan Cavanna that Zilisch climbed out under his own power.

“He’s not dead, so that’s good,” which sounds worse than it was intended. Love really though he hurt his best friend in that moment.

Zilisch walked out and said ‘I’m good’ but conceded it was a scary experience ‘and it hurts for sure.’

He told Hill they were good.

“He was crying in there and just wanted to make sure he didn’t hurt me, we’re best friends,” Zilisch said. “I wouldn’t want to do that to him. I’m very grateful to have someone like Jesse who we can race hard on the track but not care about each other off the track too.”

Love said he took responsibility in the infield care center but Zilisch said it didn’t come across as that simple either.

“I watched the replay once and it’s hard to tell,” Zilisch said. “I was just trying to keep him in my mirror, right? You can’t let guys have runs like that. I probably let us get too far clear out front. I need to rewatch it to have a clearer answer but maybe I should have given him the run.”

Burton was also emotional after the race, feeling as though he was denied a rare chance to win, something he has done twice before at Talladega

He usually drives for mid-pack teams that do not have Cup Series level resources.

“We don’t have a ton of opportunities to win,” he said. “These are the tracks we can win at. My guys did a great job all day, brought us a fast racecar. We did all we could.

“So close. So close. So frustrating.”

Which is why he kept talking himself into seeing a version of a replay where he should have been the winner.

“The angles I keep seeing, we won the race,” Burton said. “Maybe there is a different angle that I haven’t seen. Before we leave here today, I am definitely going to see proof because what I keep seeing on the TV screens doesn’t look like we lost the race.

“If we lost the race, we lost the race obviously. But I feel like we won. I had the [Nos.] 2 car here and 21 car here and I was ahead of all three of them from my point of view.”

NASCAR commissioner Steve Phelps stopped by to chat with Burton afterwards just to console him and give appreciation for the show and heart.

But also to address Burton’s conviction that the race should have stayed green to the finish line anyway.

“I don’t know why we threw the caution anyway, I don’t get that at all,” he said. “I feel like we should race back unless somebody was flipping or seriously hurt, we should be able to race back.”

But Zilisch hit the wall, nose first, really hard and NASCAR wanted to get emergency vehicles rolling on a hot track as soon as possible so the caution waved.

Meanwhile, Katherine Legge was involved in a crash with 13 laps to go but as Aric Almirola emphasized, this was his fault.

Almirola was cleared to jump ahead of Legge, who was minding her own around 15th place but the veteran driver jumped in line too late, triggering a crash that eliminated them both alongside Jeffrey Earnhardt and Brandon Jones.

“The middle lane was just fizzling out there and I crashed myself, I guess,” said Almirola after being released from the infield care center. “Yeah, (I) had a quick hole I guess, and he (the spotter) said ‘clear,’ so I moved and, I don’t know, I wasn’t clear. Obviously wasn’t clear since I crashed. Katherine (Legge) didn’t do anything wrong; she was right where she needed to be and I turned across her nose.

“Hate that it took us out of the race and just happy to have Young Life on the car and everybody here that supports them. Wish we could’ve had a better run for them.”

Legge, who has now crashed out of every start she has made across ARCA, Xfinity And Cup this year did everything she was asked on Saturday and had fun knowing there wasn’t anything the Sports Car and IndyCar veteran could have done differently.

“Honestly, I was having so much fun and it was awesome,” Legge said. “The car was awesome. Jordan Anderson Racing did a phenomenal job giving me a great car. And you know, I just kind of was hanging out for the first 2/3rds of the race, and then we got a little bit more racey, and I could run up there pretty easy. Suck up really well, and so I thought we were going to have a great day, but we can’t catch a break. It just it is what it is, I’m really, I’m really grateful that I’m here. I had a blast.”

Hill said he never had a doubt.

“I saw the video board when we rolled down the frontstretch and it looked like, from where I was sitting, which I’m obviously biased for myself, it looked like I had won,” Hill said. “It feels like a lifetime waiting. The same thing happened to me at Daytona a couple of years ago, that I had to wait to find out if I had won the race or not. My stomach is kind of cramping up and I have to tell myself that it’s fine either way, second is a good day and nothing is broke.

“When my spotter Derek Kneeland told me we had won, that I checked Talladega off my list, it was a huge sigh of relief.”

Hill has now won at every superspeedway style track and snapped a tie with Dale Earnhardt and Tony Stewart.

“When Derek told me that I had won, he followed it up with, ‘you’re the guy now and you have nine and they have eight,’ I was like, ‘that’s awesome’ but for me, I don’t think a lot about that because I have a lot to live up to when it comes to those two names.

“It’s awesome but at the same time, I have a lot to do before I’m anywhere close to the same level of Stewart and Dale Sr.”

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