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Flares of temper are a common sight in NASCAR. For a sport as unrefined as NASCAR, it is only natural for drivers to lose their calm and collected selves now and then. From nudging back on the track to locking arms in the garage area, NASCAR clashes have multiple looks, each expressing anger and resentment. We saw Richard Childress Racing driver Austin Dillon lose his mind and get his helmet airborne in an attempt to hit Tyler Reddick’s car in Pocono. However, in recent years, Austin Dillon wasn’t the first driver to express his anger in an RCR jumpsuit, Austin Hill came across something similar as well.

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The previous year’s Xfinity Series race at Martinsville in October saw the 29-year-old go up against Jordan Andersen Racing’s Myatt Snider in the pit area. Following an on-track incident, RCR’s Xfinity star recalls that a fistfight erupted between the two. Speaking on Dale Earnhardt Jr.‘s podcast, The Dale Jr. Download, Austin Hill takes a trip down memory lane.

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What happened between Austin Hill and Myatt Snider in 2022?

Being the shortest track in the NASCAR schedule, Martinsville has often hosted some heated moments in the garage. In October 2022, following the Xfinity Series race, long-distance footage of the two drivers emerged, and it seemed like they were going at it in a heated altercation. Soon after, the driver of the No. 21 Chevrolet was seen landing a hard punch on Myatt’s jaw and even pursued Snider to embroil into battle further.

The incident between Xfinity’s #21 and #31 drivers grabbed the attention of NASCAR as they nosed into the matter, trying to investigate the reason for the fight in the first place. After the incident, Austin Hill conveyed that he initially wanted peace, despite his immediate feelings of resentment for Myatt. While the former couldn’t hold his punches back as the conversation between them heated up, he, to this date, remembers and maintains his stance from back then. Going with two-time Xfinity champion Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s request, Austin Hill revealed,

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“He comes up to me, and we have our discussion; we are bickering back and forth about. What happened? Now, we obviously have our views on it. When he first walked up I said, we just don’t need to talk right now and he’s like, ‘we’re gonna have a conversation.”

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The 2023 regular season champion finished 10th in the race, while Myatt took P14. The scuffle also arrived a week after Bubba Wallace was dropped from the playoffs for shoving Kyle Larson in a Cup Series playoff race in Las Vegas.

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Hill tried to walk away from the fight thrice

Such displays of temper can often come forward and even more so in Martinsville. A grueling and grinding experience in the scorching sun for the drivers would surely push them to the edge—especially more when there is more depth to a conversation, with on-track events as the backdrop. Continuing the conversation with Dale Jr., Austin Hill then resumed the tale of his showdown with Snider.

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He claimed, “So we’re talking and middle way through the conversation, I’m like Myatt please get out before somebody gets hurt. I don’t want to do this right now. Like I can tell, my blood pressure is getting up. I’m starting to get mad, like my face is red; I’m boiling. There was a third time, and I said it.”

While Austin Hill has conveyed that his initial intention was to move away from the spat and have a good discussion about it after leveling their heads, in the spur of the moment, he also stopped holding his punches back and flung at him in full force. However, that was only a reaction to a possible threat.

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“Please walk away before somebody gets hurt. I’m really over it. I’m done talking to you.’ He goes to say something, and right when he did that, he had his hands in the pocket the whole time. He goes and takes his hands out of his pocket, and you can’t see it because the video’s so far away. He takes his hands out of his pockets, he takes a slight step forward towards me, and when he did that I reacted.

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Austin Hill’s story description is how most fights in NASCAR usually go about. Another famous situation would be this year’s fiasco between Ross Chastain and Noah Gragson at Kansas, where, although Chastain initially tried to hold back, he landed a strong jab on the latter.

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Ansuman Abhisek

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Ansuman Abhisek is a NASCAR Writer at EssentiallySports. Even before he made his way into the world of motorsports, he had already made a name for himself in the sports journalism field by working as a writer for a few media houses. Now, having covered multiple Cup races live, he has often been the first to report on-track incidents and also provide his readers with an in-depth analysis of the same. His well-researched stories have been received well by both fans and NASCAR drivers, like Natalie Decker. After covering numerous top trending stories on Dale Earnhardt Jr, Tony Stewart, and Denny Hamlin, Ansuman has found his specialization. If you ask him, his favorite stories are the ones where he gets to talk about Dale Earnhardt Sr and his legendary tales.

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Shivali Nathta

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