July 31, 2025
A couple of news items hit the NASCAR interweb the other day:
- As expected, after contact with Joe Gibbs Racing’s Aric Almirola, Richard Childress Racing driver Austin Hill was suspended for one race (along with losing all of the playoff points he has earned or will earn between now and the end of the regular season. Another RCR Austin, Austin Dillon, will fill in for Hill at Iowa.
- In slightly less expected news, Kaulig Racing has parted ways with Josh Williams, effective immediately. A number of drivers will climb behind the wheel of Kaulig’s #11 car during the remainder of the season, starting with Carson Hocevar at Iowa.
I wasn’t going to touch on Hill’s suspension but why not? There have been a couple of suspensions in the Cup Series over the last few years that have sparking some controversy. In 2022, Bubba Wallace wrecked Kyle Larson at Michigan and was suspended for a race. A year later, Chase Elliott wrecked Denny Hamlin at Charlotte and received the same punishment. Of course, in both cases, there was over-analysis, first of why Bubba was suspended and then if Chase received equal punishment and in as timely a manner. (Guess what? The answer to both concerns is “Yes!”)
So, if it was determined that Hill indeed wrecked Aric Almirola with intention, then the one-race suspension is warranted and there is precedent. (I might have argued that Hill was simply over-correcting or lost control after being struck by Almirola but that’s for NASCAR to decide, not some guy at his keyboard.) However, it’s the decision to strip Hill of all of his playoff points. This smells less of a punishment for an on-track incident and more of somebody wanting to all but eliminate Hill from the playoff picture.
I’m not saying that’s what this is, but it sure seems strange that the precedent has always been a one-race suspension. Not sure what the meaning behind the loss of ALL playoff points is supposed to be.
On to the next part of this conversation, the backlash RCR is receiving seems less about Hill’s actions or the penalty and more about the fact that Austin Dillon, and not Kyle Busch, is going to fill in for Hill for Iowa. To the best of my knowledge, RCR has not revealed why they chose Dillon over Busch so it’s all just conjecture at this point.
In my opinion (and since this is my blog, mine is the only one that counts), it shouldn’t be Dillon or Busch. Dillon, Busch, Hill and Jesse Love are the current members of the RCR roster in Xfinity and Cup. Eventually, at least one of them will be moving on. Busch signed an extension with Childress but he’s either headed to retirement or, in a move that would make his fans cream themselves, another team. Jesse Love is rumoured to be headed to Legacy Motor Club for 2026. Even if he doesn’t go there, short of an RCR Cup ride opening up, Love will eventually be moving on.
Iowa, and the suspension of Austin Hill, provided an opportunity for RCR to plan for the future. Go scour the Truck Series or the ARCA series. Find a driver that, in a couple of years, would be looking for an Xfinity ride. Tyler Ankrum, Kaden Honeycut. Connor Mosack. Brenden Queen. Lavar Scott. And those are just Chevy drivers in Trucks and ARCA. Don’t forget that, before singing with RCR, Jesse Love was driving for JGR and Toyota in the ARCA Series. There’s nothing that says you couldn’t steal someone from Toyota or Ford. Give some young driver a one-off start in your Xfinity car and, if he/she does well, you’ve got the start of the next wave of RCR on your radar.
As for the announcement regarding Josh Williams – disappointing but not surprising. I think Josh Williams’ “Park It’ brought him a lot of notoriety and raised his profile in NASCAR. With the mullet and bringing pizza when he was called to the NASCAR trailer, he was a real character, a good guy that people could root for. I remember thinking, at the time, he’d either be out of NASCAR in a year or he’d be in a top-level ride. When he was signed to Kaulig, I figured this might be a great story. That loveable good ol’ boy who took “being parked” a little too literally was going to get a chance to compete for wins and a championship.
Unfortunately, it was like when Frank Thomas became a Toronto Blue Jay in the mid-2000s. It was a great idea in theory, but the timing was off. By the time Williams joined Kaulig, the shine had worn off the little team that could because they thought they were a big team, more focused on the Cup side of things. The feel-good Ty Dillon In-Season Challenge story aside, Kaulig would fail to be more than a mid-pack team in Cup. Meanwhile, their Xfinity program, which had been one of the best stories in NASCAR when this come-outta-nowhere team was suddenly challenging and beating the JGRs and JR Motorsports of NASCAR, was fading away.
Like so many “Was it the car or the driver?” questions in NASCAR, the true measure of how good Williams was or wasn’t will likely never be known. Personally, I think he was a top 20 driver who went from top 30 equipment to top 20 equipment. He got the most his level of talent could get out of the level of equipment he was in. As a promo guy, to steal a wrestling term, he was somebody that a new fan might hear and think “That guy’s cool. I’ll cheer for him!” But Kaulig still believes it’s the Kaulig of four or five years ago and when he wasn’t battling for the win, they got frustrated and eventually let him go.
My initial thought was that they should have waited until the end of the season to make that announcement or let Williams run to the end of the season. However, I can kind of see the point of making the #11 Chevrolet an “open car” and make the rest of the season a series of tryouts.
Of course, who’s the first driver they put in the car: a Cup driver in Carson Hocevar. Don’t get me wrong, I like Carson Hocevar. In fact, he’s probably my favourite current driver in the Cup series. But, much like the situation at RCR, I would have preferred Kaulig bring in a driver from the Trucks or ARCA series. In fact, I believe there is more imperative for Kaulig to have gone to one of the lower series for Williams’ replacement. Because while Hill will be back in the Xfinity series for the race at Watkins Glen, Kaulig will not only need another replacement for that race, it will need one for the 2026 campaign.
As a Chevrolet team, Kaulig should be looking at the same drivers that RCR could have been looking for. While they may not have the history that RCR has, they would offer a long-term (at least a season or so) chance to move up.
Now it’s possible that Hocevar, much like Dillon, was just a quick and easy temporary fix. “The best they could come up on such short notice,” as it were. The smart thing to do is to get things in place for the future and not just spend the rest of 2025 “trophy hunting” as Kaulig has referred to their Xfinity efforts over the past several years.
Like a lot of people in NASCAR, they need to be thinking long-term gains, not short-term glory.
johnmilner.ca 