Austin Hill won the NASCAR Xfinity Series season opener at Daytona International Speedway.
Two weeks later, Hill triumphed on 1.5-mile Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
On Saturday, the series leader will try for his third victory of the season on a 1.5-mile track that thinks it’s a superspeedway in the nightcap of a NASCAR doubleheader, the Raptor King of Tough 250 at Atlanta Motor Speedway (5 p.m. on FS1, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Fresh pavement applied before last year’s races radically changed the character of the Atlanta track, transforming it from a slip-and-slide 1.5-miler to a venue that behaves more like a superspeedway, where cars draft in precariously close quarters.
That’s a bonus for Hill, the defending race winner who has claimed three of his four career Xfinity victories on tracks that feature a superspeedway competition package.
The driver of the No. 21 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet will have some stiff competition. Full-time NASCAR Cup Series driver Justin Haley, a four-time Xfinity winner on superspeedways, is moonlighting in the No. 10 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet this Saturday.
“It’s probably my favorite race track right now on the schedule,” Haley said. “It’s just something so different than any other track we go to, with the high speeds and it being an in-between track.”
Driving the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, John Hunter Nemechek also should be a contender on Saturday. He has started the season with four straight finishes of sixth or better, including a victory at Fontana and a second at Daytona.
TIL NEXT TIME, I AM STILL WORKING ON MY REDNECK!
