Austin Hill is the driver to beat in Xfinity race at Atlanta

Yesterday at 11:17 AM

The NASCAR Xfinity Series is the second half of an exciting racing doubleheader on Saturday with the Bennett Transportation & Logistics 250 (5 p.m. ET on The CW, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at the lightning-fast Atlanta Motor Speedway 1.5-miler.

Austin Hill, who was trying to win an incredible fourth straight February Xfinity Series race last week in the Daytona season-opener, swept the stage wins and led a race best 56 laps only to retire early with engine problems on his No. 21 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet. His RCR teammate Jesse Love ended up winning the race.

Hill gets another shot at track domination this weekend at Atlanta where the Georgia native is going for his fifth win in the last six races. He swept both race victories last season. In a sort of ironic inversion to last weekend at Daytona, Hill led only the final two overtime laps in last February‘s race win at Atlanta while his teammate Love led a dominating 157 of the 169 laps and finished 12th.

With its recent reconfiguration, Atlanta certainly presents itself as another "superspeedway" only 1-mile shorter than Daytona. Judging by the racing last weekend, expect a highly-competitive look again at Atlanta.

Eleven drivers led laps at Daytona from veteran championship favorites such as Hill, Justin Allgaier and Sheldon Creed to talented young drivers such as Love and highly-touted rookie Connor Zilisch, who joins former NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series standouts Christian Eckes, Nick Sanchez and Taylor Gray among the new mix of promising young stars. Harrison Burton, who returns to the NASCAR Xfinity Series after three years in the NASCAR Cup Series ranks is also expected to consistently run up front and challenge for trophies.

Creed takes a nine-point advantage over Love atop the championship standings heading to Atlanta, where Allgaier (2021) and Hill (2022, 2023, 2024) are the only fulltime series drivers with victories.

Qualifying is set for 5 p.m. Friday and available on the CW App. Sam Mayer won pole position in 2024.

— NASCAR Wire Service —