Richard Childress Says NASCAR Gives His Team “Trouble” All The Time Because They’re A “Blue Collar Team”

Gotta think NASCAR’s not going to be happy with that one.

It’s Brickyard 400 weekend, which means NASCAR is in Indiana for their annual crown jewel event at the iconic Indianapolis Motor Speedway. But before the Cup Series race could even get started, we saw quite a bit of fireworks from the Xfinity Series yesterday during the Pennzoil 250.

In the closing laps of the race, Aric Almirola used his bumper to get past the #21 car of Austin Hill. And depending on who you believe, Hill then either lost control of his car and took out Almirola, or intentionally swerved into his right rear to send him hard into the wall.

It was a dangerous situation for Almirola, who hit the wall nearly head on in a place where the track doesn’t have SAFER barriers to lessen the impact, was thankfully able to walk away under his own power. But after reviewing the video, NASCAR felt that Hill had intentionally wrecked the #19 car, and parked the Richard Childress Racing driver for 5 laps for reckless driving.

The penalty didn’t sit well with Austin Hill, who went off on NASCAR on the radio and claimed that he simply lost control of his car after being bumped by Almirola:

“They can go f–k themselves. F–k NASCAR. That is f–king bulls–t. I’m f–king sideways, I go to correct it back to the left, it gets locked to the left and I f–king run into the 19.”

Yeah, probably not going to help his case. And if you look at Hill’s white gloves through the windshield, it certainly looks like he turned his car hard to the left…

After the incident, many were calling for Hill to be suspended for next week’s race at Iowa. And there’s certainly precedent for NASCAR to suspend drivers after intentionally hooking another car in the right rear. Bubba Wallace was suspended back in 2022 for intentionally wrecking Kyle Larson at Las Vegas, while Chase Elliott was suspended in 2023 for the same thing after wrecking Denny Hamlin at Charlotte.

But this past offseason, NASCAR implemented a new rule requiring a driver to start every race or lose all of their playoff points in the postseason, meaning that if Hill is suspended, he would lose the 21 playoff points he’s accumulated so far in 2025 (as well as any future playoff points he earns leading up to the start of the playoffs).

And team owner Richard Childress had some harsh words for NASCAR when asked about the possibility of a suspension for his driver.

Asked by Jordan Bianchi after the race if he thought Hill should be suspended, Childress didn’t hold back:

“Hell no. They didn’t do a damn thing to the 2 car when he wrecked Ty and admitted to it, drove him in the right rear and wrecked him at COTA. It’s who you are. We’re a blue collar team, they give us trouble all the time.”

Childress is referring to an incident in the Cup Series race at Circuit of the Americas back in March between Austin Cindric in the #2 car and Ty Dillon (who happens to be the grandson of Richard Childress) in the #10 car, when Cindric hooked Dillon and sent him spinning on the road course.

Cindric was penalized 50 points for the incident, but wasn’t suspended like other drivers have been. While talking about the decision not to park the driver of the #2 car for a race, NASCAR managing director of racing communications Mike Forde said it was because the incident happened on a road course with slower speeds and didn’t lead to a caution flag.

Of course based on their own precedent Cindric probably should have been suspended for a race. But even based on NASCAR’s logic in that situation, it seems that the incident with Austin Hill isn’t really similar because it occurred on a superspeedway with high speeds and did lead to a caution flag (and the end of Aric Almirola’s day).

I fully expect that Hill will be suspended for a race, which will no doubt upset Childress. But I think it has more to do with following the rules and the precedent that NASCAR has set than it does with them being a “blue collar team.”The post Richard Childress Says NASCAR Gives His Team “Trouble” All The Time Because They’re A “Blue Collar Team” first appeared on Whiskey Riff.