Sometimes it is the outside perspective that brings internal change. Austin Hill will wholeheartedly vouch for this. The 29-year-old Richard Childress Racing driver is an Xfinity hotshot these days. But he came into the NASCAR limelight in 2019, driving the #16 Toyota for Hattori Racing Enterprises in the Craftsman Truck Series. Although, it wasn’t all plain sailing at first. 

Hill endured a lean patch during his first year with Hattori Racing, especially when compared to his round-one win at Daytona. He would still score six top-ten finishes in the next eleven races to prove his consistency. However, the winning touch seemed to have vanished. Then came the tweak that would transform his racing pedigree. 

Austin Hill reveals the honest feedback that gave his racing fortunes a positive “restart”

Recently, Austin Hill appeared on Dale Earnhardt Jr’s podcast “The Dale Jr. Download” and shared more than a few anecdotes from his life. One among them was a heart-to-heart chat with his crew chief that saw him reap rewards on the track. He remembers the time his crew chief sat down with him during one of their team meetings in 2019. 

“We did have a rough patch then. I remember eight to ten races into the 2019 season… My crew chief goes, ‘You know what, I know what the problem is. You suck at restarts’,” Hill says, much to the amusement of the podcast’s hosts. And this was just the cue Hill needed back then.

Austin Hill spoke about the work that was done soon after. “You just saw a change after those first eight to ten races. It was almost like a light switch. I saw a lot of film, restarts and a lot of in-car cam… Within the next few races, I felt like I was just as good as anybody else or one of the best restarters.”

The Winston-born #21 Xfinity driver credits his crew chief from 2019 even today. He said, “I think that was the turning point in 2019 where I knew that I needed to work harder at it.” One could also underline how Hill took such harsh criticism positively and not to his heart. 

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How Richard Childress driver’s ‘honest’ upbringing helped him deal with adversity

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Austin Hill let the listeners know about his personal character through his crew chief episode from 2019. A lot of this was also down to his values from early life. He said, “I want people to be honest with me. I am a very straightforward person. That’s just the way I was raised. You have to be honest with each other, no matter if it maybe ticks you off or not.”

It is no wonder then that Hill immediately went to work on his restarts. The results were there for everyone to see as well. He ended 2019 by winning three of the last eight races with two further top-six finishes for good measure. Hill also placed a solid fifth in the overall standings that campaign. 

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Austin Hill has clearly made good on his crew chief’s straight take. Playoff qualifications have become a norm for him regardless of the series. The question on everyone’s lips is whether he can rise a step further and claim a Championship 4 spot in the Xfinity series. Or maybe even win the title altogether.