KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Ideally, NASCAR teammates work closely together. Camaraderie and collaboration usually follow. There’s a limit, however, to just how close that teamwork should be.
That hard lesson hit home for Richard Childress Racing stablemates Jesse Love and Austin Hill in Saturday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race at Kansas Speedway. Love came away with a fourth-place finish in the Kansas Lottery 300, but Hill’s day ended after completing just 37 of the 200 laps, losing control of his No. 21 Chevrolet and crashing after close-confines racing with Love.
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Hill battled alongside Love’s No. 2 RCR Chevrolet through Turns 3 and 4 when their contest for sixth place in the early going turned sour. Love held the middle groove to Hill’s high side, but offered little in the way of running room near the corner exit. Their proximity upset Hill’s aerodynamic balance, causing his No. 21 entry to slide out.
“Just battling hard there for the Stage 1 points,” Hill said after an evaluation at the infield care center. “You know, he got a run on me and slid me, so then I turned back under him and got beside him, and then I was trying to be a good teammate and not just go in there and slide him really dirty or anything. So I just kind of was content with just running the bottom (lane) and see if I could beat him on the bottom. And my spotter, Derek (Kneeland), told me that he was starting to get tight on my door, and what he was doing in the center of the corner was fine. There was enough air there. We were both racing hard.
“He was going to clear me down or at least be beside me, probably ahead of me, down the frontstretch, and that last little bit when we were coming off (Turn) 4, when he got all the way on my door, he knew what was going to happen. I mean, he put it right on my door. There was no air on the right sides. I don’t care how good of a race car you are, when there’s no air on the right sides, you’re going to spin out every time. So yeah, Jesse’s better than that, and we’re teammates. I would expect a little more room than what I was given. So unfortunate, just how our season has been going, though, man.”
Love, the defending series champion, was contrite after emerging from his No. 2 Chevy on pit road. He indicated he would make a point to discuss the incident with Austin before the night was out.
“Yeah, I was definitely hoping for a little bit more room, too — not in that instance, but maybe before,” said Love. “I felt like, look, I’m the reason that Austin got in that spinner crash, certainly. I didn’t really see a replay, but I hate that for him because, did I go overboard on how tight I ran him? You know, probably. I feel like I’m aware of that. I’ll obviously have to lean on the people around me with more experience to say what they think on it so I can get their two cents, but at the end of the day, we were both racing each other hard. Whether or not we need to be doing that from how far back I came from, maybe that’s a conversation me and him can have. But regardless, no matter what I feel about it, I just hate it for the 21 guys and (crew chief) Chad Haney and Austin and, of course, Richard and all of RCR. We want both of our cars up there competing. It makes both of us better.”
WATCH: Love clears the air on Hill contact: ‘I was racing hard’
Hill’s spin was nearly a harmless one, but as the No. 21 drifted toward the track apron, the car was T-boned by the approaching No. 18 Toyota of William Sawalich. The left-side damage was terminal to Hill’s Chevy.
“I have no idea where the 18 was going, but he KO’d us and ended our day,” Hill said. “I guess he closed his eyes when he went through the smoke. I’m not really sure.”
Said Sawalich, a first-time winner at Rockingham two weeks ago: “Yeah, I thought he was gonna keep rolling up the track, and I was just in the smoke and I didn’t see him until I was basically into him. So, just unfortunate.”
Love extended his series-leading streak of races without a DNF to 24. Before Saturday, his closest challenger in that category was Hill; the early exit snapped his streak of running at the finish at 18 races. While Love solidified his third-place stature in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series standings, Hill teetered to eighth place after a two-spot drop.
The two teammates should also figure prominently into the circuit’s next race, next Saturday’s Ag-Pro 300 (4 p.m. ET, The CW, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Talladega Superspeedway. Hill swept last season’s O’Reilly Series events at the 2.66-mile Alabama track, and Love notched his first series win there in April 2024.
They’ll likely have to work closely again next weekend, but Hill said he expected little change to their dynamic.
“I’d say business as usual,” Hill said. “Talladega is a total different breed than Kansas is. So nah, we’ll be fine there.”