NASCAR Penalty: Austin Hill fined and docked points for intentionally wrecking Cole Custer at Charlotte

Richard Childress Racing driver Austin Hill was fined $25,000 and docked 25 points for intentionally wrecking into Cole Custer at Charlotte Motor Speedway during the BetMGM 300. NASCAR penalized the driver for violating the Member Code of Conduct during the Xfinity Series race.

With 17 laps to go in the race, Hill made contact with Custer and sent him into the wall as a result of the collision. The #21 Chevrolet driver continued to deliberately push Custer and the latter hit the inside wall with a heavy impact. While this could have resulted in an injury, Custer was fine after the crash.

Owing to this incident, NASCAR penalized Austin Hill and fined him $25k along with stripping 25 driver points from his standings.

Following the penalty, Hill is now in third place, behind Cole Custer. Chandler Smith is now the new leader in the Xfinity Series points standings.

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Cole Custer on Austin Hill's incident at Charlotte: "He tried to kill me on the backstretch"

After the incident on the track, Austin Hill went on to finish in 25th place while Cole Custer was out of the competition in 32nd place. The latter was fuming about the incident on the track after the end of the race.

Speaking to the media, Custer stated that Hill tried to "kill him on the backstretch." He said (via Frontstretch):

"He (Austin Hill) put me in the fence off (turn) 4 and then we hit on the front stretch because I was gonna pinch him down. He decided to try and side-draft me and then we hit again. And then I don't know if we blew a tire at the 1 or what happened at the 1, and then he tried to kill me on the backstretch and just held it full throttle until he wrecked our car and killed the rear clip."

Austin Hill has previously had disciplinary issues off the track as well. During the 2022 race at Martinsville, Hill was involved in a heated conversation with fellow driver Myatt Snider after sharing a tough battle during the race.

The conversation soon took a turn after Hill punched Snider. Other members of the crew then got involved in the brawl.

While Hill was not penalized for this incident in 2022, NASCAR penalized the driver for his recent incident with Cole Custer.