For the fourth time in 5 years, Austin Hill received the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Components Collection season opener at Daytona Worldwide Speedway.
The 31-year-old from Winston, Ga., held off a last-lap cost from Brennan Poole on the backstretch earlier than Poole was jostled out of place. Neither Justin Allgaier or Jordan Anderson depend mount a cost within the race’s waning moments, and Hill scored his fifteenth profession win on an evening the place he led 78 laps and swept the phases from the pole.
Hill took 4 tires on Lap 93, and whereas the transfer set him again to twelfth, he was in a position to carve his manner again to the entrance of the sector in lower than 10 laps and preserve management of the race to the tip.
“I like these guys, man,” Hill instructed CW Sports activities. “I wished to work with with my teammate on the finish, Jesse (Love). Everybody’s making an attempt to [mess] everyone over. I believed the underside lane was one of the best factor for me. Daytona’s been so good to me, I like this place.”
Hill is the fourth O’Reilly Auto Components Collection driver to win on Valentine’s Day, becoming a member of Geoff Bodine in 1987, Joe Nemechek in 1998 and Tony Stewart in 2009.
Saturday’s race noticed a number of large crashes, together with one as the sector took the inexperienced flag, whereas Chevrolet locked up the top-20 positions within the closing operating order.
Notable outcomes
Allgaier, Ryan Sieg, Anderson and Sammy Smith rounded out the highest 5, with Ryan Ellis, Carson Kvapil, Blaine Perkins, Jesse Love and Rajah Caruth finishing the highest 10.
Different notable finishers embrace Poole in twelfth, Carson Hocevar in twentieth, Sheldon Creed in twenty fourth, Corey Day in twenty seventh and Sam Mayer in thirty first.
Hill leads the collection factors standings because the circuit prepares to move to his house monitor of EchoPark Speedway in Hampton, Ga., the place he’s a five-time winner.
