The much-anticipated meeting between Austin Hill, Shane van Gisbergen, and NASCAR officials just wrapped up. Both Hill and van Gisbergen reacted following the 17-minute meeting in NASCAR’s version of the principal’s office.
Van Gisbergen was the first to emerge from the NASCAR hauler. He offered a very brief response to the events that took place inside.
“Ah, it went,” responded van Gisbergen when asked how it went. “It’s interesting.”
Hill offered a bit more, but remained guarded after the hauler talk with NASCAR officials. He first joked with reporters, asking if van Gisbergen didn’t want to make a comment.
“All of it [was interesting],” said Hill. “NASCAR let us know what we need to do moving forward. I will leave that in there (the hauler).”
Asked if he and van Gisbergen had a conversation … or just grunted, Hill said there was a conversation.
“We’re going to go to a race and, yeah, I’m looking forward to it.”
When asked if it was settled, Hill simply said, “I sure hope so.”
The reason for the meeting
On Lap 47 of the eero 400 at Chicagoland Speedway, Shane van Gisbergen clipped the left rear of Austin Hill and crumpled No. 33 Zone Chevy. Immediately, Richard Childress said van Gisbergen intentionally wrecked Hill in retribution for Hill wrecking both van Gisbergen and Connor Zilisch out of the race at Naval Base Coronado two weeks earlier.
There was retaliation by Hill following the initial incident. In-car footage shows Hill, after making it back to pit road, was told to go back to the garage to see if his RCR team could repair the car.
Upon leaving the pits to get back on the track to go back around to enter the garage area, Hill hit van Gisbergen in the left front under caution. He was told over team radio, just prior to contact, “Big picture, Austin. Big picture, please.”
NASCAR ultimately decided not to penalize either driver.
NASCAR explains decision not to penalize either driver
“There will not be a penalty to the 97 [van Gisbergen] on this one,” said managing director of racing communication Mike Forde. “But obviously, hearing the Austin Hill interview after, and Elton Sawyer did talk to Austin yesterday, Monday.
“So we will have Shane van Gisbergen and Austin Hill in the hauler this weekend to have a discussion.”
Forde did admit that when NASCAR makes these episodes, and there is no penalty but there is a trip to the hauler by the drivers, it causes questions on social media. Still, there was no finding that van Gisbergen’s intention was 100 percent intentional.
“I’ve noticed social media chatter after we have Hauler Talk episodes where we don’t penalize someone, but if you have them in the hauler as well, ‘Why don’t you penalize them, since you didn’t like it all that much.’
“I guess that’s a fair point, but there was nothing definitive that said this was 100-percent intentional, penalty-worthy, ‘You need to put a stop to this.’
“Certainly questionable, certainly there are hot heads with these two folks that we want to have a discussion about, and that it doesn’t boil over into a significant problem at Atlanta and beyond. So, we plan to have that conversation on Saturday, but that’s kind of where we are.”
Naturally, there was a follow-up question to Forde about the resulting door-slam by Hill to SVG under caution. Forde said that he discussed that with Elton Sawyer.
“There is not. We look at that as emotion. I asked Elton Sawyer, any penalty there? I imagine that’s just an emotional thing. He said, ‘No penalty there; definitely is emotion, I would’ve done the same thing 30 years ago when I was a driver.’
“We are letting that one go as well.”