Austin Hill Reveals Biggest Challenge At Phoenix NASCAR Xfinity Race: ‘Got to be Prepared’

Austin Hill started the 2024 Xfinity Series red hot by sweeping the first two races of the season at Daytona International and Atlanta Motor Speedway and then he went a bit cold. Victory dodged Hill until the September race in Atlanta, but he has been hot again after heading to Victory Lane at Homestead-Miami.

These hot and cold streaks have possibly led Hill to have a more calculated and focused outlook heading into this Saturday’s Xfinity Series Championship Race.

“The thing that I’ve been trying to drive home with the entire 21 team is let’s just view this as a March race,” Hill told Newsweek and other journalists. “Let’s not view it as the last race of the season that we’re in the final four.

“Let’s view this as it’s just another race weekend. Let’s not overthink things. Let’s just do what we do best with our 21 team and hope it’s enough.”

Hill heads to Phoenix Raceway as the No. 1 seed in the NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoff standings and this is the third straight season that he qualified for the Playoffs but it is his first appearance in the Championship 4.

Phoenix Raceway and Hill get along well together. In five career Xfinity starts at Phoenix Raceway he has four Top 10 finishes and in the 2024 Spring race in the Sonoran Desert he finished fourth. However, this race at Phoenix Raceway has a later start time, plus it’s winter in Phoenix (It’s a pretty tepid winter here in Phoenix but there is a substantial temperature difference between the two seasons) and as such, car preparation is paramount.

“I think the biggest thing is we’re going to be starting later in the evening, so it’s going to kind of turn into night pretty quick,” Hill said. “So, I think we got to be prepared for that, kind of make our best-educated guess on what we think the racetrack’s going to do when it goes in tonight.

“That’s going to be the main thing that we have to focus on is what our car, is our car going to free up, tighten up, and what is it going to do when it gets into that nighttime?”

Keeping things in focus and in perspective are keys for Hill, but ultimately all that matters is the last lap.

“Because the only thing that matters this weekend is lap 200,” Hill said. “Everything else from 199 to zero doesn’t matter. So what can we do to be the best that we can possibly be for that last lap?”