XFINITY: Hill Says Drivers Need to Look in Mirror After Martinsville

Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

After a chaotic finish to last Saturday's NASCAR Xfinity Series US Marine Corps 250 at Martinsville Speedway, which ended with a ton of torn up race cars, and a couple of altercations in the infield care center, NASCAR chose to sit down the entire NASCAR Xfinity Series garage for an early-morning meeting on Saturday morning prior to the on-track activity at Darlington Raceway to adress the situation.

RELATED: Tempers Boil Over in Over-the-Line Finish at Martinsville

Austin Hill, who won last weekend's race as he snaked through the final-lap carnage, says that NASCAR had a stern tone as they attempted to lay out that what transpired in last weekend's race was not acceptable in the NASCAR National Series ranks.

"I would say the tone of the meeting was firm, but [NASCAR] got their point across, and they did it in a really good way," Hill said in a media availability. "I think that was good for everyone in the series to hear. You know, the different sides of it... with all three that were in there. A lot of great things were said about what we could do better going forward."

While NASCAR would rather not make penalty calls in connection with on-track battles between drivers, Hill says the sanctioning body warned the drivers at Darlington Raceway that they would step in if they had to.

"NASCAR made it very clear that they don't want to be in the ball and strikes business. They don't want to be making all of these calls, so, they said for us to help them with that," Hill said. "They also said that if they had to step in and start making calls, and black flagging people and parking people and doing all of those things, that they'll do it."

Hill, who also had a controversial incident prior to the shenanigans on the final lap between Taylor Gray and Sammy Smith, admits that as a whole, the NASCAR Xfinity Series drivers could do better, and he feels they will need to do better if they want to keep deciding diffrerences on the track without NASCAR intervention.

"I agree with what NASCAR's stance is at, but I also think that we, as the Xfinity Series, have to do a better job going forward when we go back to Martinsville and not put it in NASCAR's hands," Hill explained. "We don't want NASCAR to get involved and to have to make these ball and strike calls. We don't want that as drivers. We want to be able to race, beat, and bang and do all of these things, but do it in a respectful way. There's a lot of things. We all have to look in the mirror, even myself included, we all as drivers have to look in the mirror and figure out what we can do to move forward and not have NASCAR get involved."

While last week was embarrassing for the NASCAR Xfinity Series garage, Hill wants to remind everyone that it has seemingly been a Martinsville-only situation, where everyone loses their head, the last few seasons. And that the normality in the series is that it produces some of the best racing of any series in NASCAR.

"I stand strongly on the side of for whatever reason when the Xfinity Series goes to Martinsville, we just lose our minds," Hill said. "But everywhere else we are the best racing in NASCAR. And I strongly stand behind that we are the best series in NASCAR. Just when you go to Martinsville, we look like we don't know what we're doing. We're going to get through it. We have, whatever it is, seven [or] eight months before we go back to Martinsville, I'm hoping a lot of things change between now and then."

While Hill feels the Saturday morning meeting with NASCAR was productive, he thinks there will need to be additional meetings throughout the year to reinforce what was said so drivers don't drift away from respect before the next event at Martinsville Speedway in October.

"I don't think that just one meeting is going to change the outcome of the Playoff race at Martinsville. It might be one of those cases where we need to have multiple meetings throughout the year just to reiterate some of the stuff," Hill explained. "Even if things aren't happening on the race track, even if it's just to say we're all racing clean and we're all doing the right things, but I think we've got to keep it in everyone's head that race the way you want to be raced, and race with respect, and I thought that's kind of where we ended the conversation today. I thought it was all great."

As for this weekend's race at Darlington Raceway, Hill says he thinks things will be the polar opposite of what we saw a week ago at Martinsville Speedway.

"I think it's going to calm down a lot more than you think today. We'll have to wait and see, but I think today is going to be a very -- we're all still going to be very aggressive and try to win the race, but it's going to be a very respectful race," Hill said.

The NASCAR Xfinity Series Sport Clips Haircuts VFW Help a Hero 200 at Darlington Raceway is set for Saturday, April 5 and will be televised on The CW. The race broadcast will kick off at 3:30 PM ET.