Shane van Gisbergen has alleged that Austin Hill didn't behave respectfully during their meeting at EchoPark Speedway on Saturday. NASCAR officials had summoned both drivers to the hauler during the ongoing Atlanta race weekend after last Sunday's incident at Chicagoland.

After the meeting on Saturday, SVG spoke with the media and highlighted that there was a "weird dynamic" with Hill. When asked if he felt that certain drivers showed him more aggression because they were intimidated by his unparalleled road course prowess, he replied:

"I don't think like that. I think it's a respect thing. I feel like everyone here I've been able to race with respect, and when I have a problem with someone, when it's a crash or I've made a mistake and got into them, I feel like everyone's receptive and I can move on quick. It's pretty cool here, you can just chat to people and move on."

However, with Hill, the New Zealand driver has never seemed to find a middle ground. In the video of the media interaction shared by reporter Steve Taranto on X, SVG further said,

"Never felt like I've been able to talk to Austin like that. I don't know. He just backs up and resorts to threatening violence. It's a weird thing."

The former Supercars champion also highlighted that one of them was "more remorseful than the other" during the hauler meeting, and that was himself. He felt Hill comes across as a driver who wants to have "the last laugh" in such confrontations or incidents.

All this stemmed from their incident on lap 47 of the Chicagoland Cup race last weekend. Shane van Gisbergen bumped into Hill from behind entering Turn 3 and sent the No. 33 Richard Childress Racing driver into a spin into the wall.

Hill was evidently unhappy and side-bumped his Trackhouse Racing rival after coming out of the pits under caution. The duo was battling for 28th place when it happened.

Austin Hill keeps his media responses brief after hauler talk

After Austin Hill exited the hauler, a bunch of reporters gathered around him for answers on what transpired in the meeting. The RCR driver looked at ease while fielding the questions, but his responses weren't longer than a sentence or two.

Summarizing his conversation with the officials and SVG, Hill said (via Jordan Bianchi on X):

"Just an incident and how to move forward, that's all."

SVG had said at Chicagoland that Hill "just grunts" approached for a conversation. Fox Sports' Bob Pockrass referred to that and snuck in a cheeky question, asking: "Did you speak or did you just grunt?"

Hill, who seemingly didn't understand the reference, replied,

"We spoke, yeah. We had a conversation."

When asked by a SiriusXM Radio reporter what happens after this conversation, he replied:

"We're gonna go to race and yeah, I'm looking forward to it."

At Chicagoland, Richard Childress felt SVG intentionally bumped into his driver as "payback for California." However, the Trackhouse driver apologized to Hill and RCR post-race, and eventually, NASCAR officials didn't penalize either driver.

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Written by

Yash Kotak

Edited by

Yash Kotak