Shane van Gisbergen and Austin Hill do not like each other. That is not a secret. They have been trading paint and insults since their Xfinity Series days at tracks like Pocono, COTA, and Sonoma. Then came San Diego. Two weeks before Chicagoland, NASCAR raced the Anduril 250 at Naval Base Coronado. Hill locked up his brakes on a restart and ruined SVG’s race. Both drivers logged DNFs. SVG was furious and called Hill a “spud” on camera afterward.
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So when the two ended up side by side at Chicagoland on Lap 48, nobody was shocked by what happened next. SVG clipped Hill’s left rear and sent him into the wall. Hill chased him down under caution and slammed his door. NASCAR spent two days reviewing it. Nobody got penalized. And everyone wanted to know why. Dale Earnhardt Jr. had four words for it.
“He said too much.”
And he was not talking about SVG.
NASCAR went through everything. Telemetry, radio, footage, race data. The numbers were not kind to SVG. He drove deeper into Turn 3 on that lap than he had all race. Richard Childress got on the radio the second it happened, “Yep, just payback for California.” On the broadcast, Dale Jr. and Jamie McMurray both said they thought it was intentional.
SVG never said a word on his radio. Post-race, he blamed Hill for chopping his nose and called it a racing incident. Brad Moran, NASCAR’s managing director of racing operations, explained the decision on Sirius XM.
“There just wasn’t enough evidence to say the incident was intentional,” Moran said. “We include everything, telemetry, radio, all footage, race data. And there just wasn’t enough.” This wasn’t surprising to Dale Jr.
“You can’t admit it. If he doesn’t admit it, NASCAR can’t assume,” he said on his podcast. “NASCAR will only act when they’ve got factual evidence or an admission of guilt. That’s kind of the way they’ve handled this in the past.”
Everyone in that room knew what they had watched. NASCAR’s hands were still tied. Both drivers got called to the hauler. No fine. No points. Just a conversation. On the other end of this, Preece handed NASCAR the evidence. At Texas, during a caution, Preece went on a full radio rant about Ty Gibbs.
“When I get to that 54, I’m done with him.”
Lap 101, he drove into Gibbs’ bumper going into Turn 3. Race over. Then he walked into post-race interviews and said it again, openly admitting he gave Gibbs no room and had no regrets. NASCAR fined him $50,000 and took 25 points. He appealed. Lost 2-to-1. The panel said his own words did him in. Dale Jr. put it as simply as could be.
“He just said too much. He went on TV and then went on radio shows Monday and Tuesday and said even more.”
That is the whole story. SVG gave NASCAR nothing to grab onto. Preece built the case against himself, statement by statement. Same act. Completely different outcomes. The racing was identical. The talking was not.