AUSTIN HILL FROM WINSTON, GEORGIA HAS WON FIVE RACES FOR RICHARD CHILDRESS RACING AT ECHO PARK SPEEDWAY IN ATLANTA – MOTORSPORT AMERICA PHOTO
by Holly Cain – NASCAR Wire Service
Saturday’s NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series’ Focused Health 250 at EchoPark Speedway (7 p.m. ET, The CW, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) completes the day’s unique two-venue race doubleheader after an early afternoon NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race on the Lime Rock Park road course in Connecticut.
And judging by the last two series races on Atlanta’s high-banked 1.5-miler, there is every reason to believe the day may end with an exclamation point. First-time race winners have claimed the last two races there. Nick Sanchez won last summer’s contest, and this February, Haas Factory Team’s Sheldon Creed earned his first O’Reilly trophy.
The driver to beat is the home-state favorite: five-time EchoPark winner Austin Hill. A sixth victory this weekend would give the No. 21 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet pilot the all-time mark — breaking a tie with NASCAR Hall of Fame inductee Kevin Harvick. Hill’s 11 wins and 925 laps led on drafting tracks are tops in each category.
Jesse Love, Hill’s RCR teammate, is the only driver with top-10 finishes at all the drafting tracks in 2026. The No. 2 RCR Chevrolet driver is ranked second in the driver standings to JR Motorsports’ Justin Allgaier, the season’s most dominating racer. Yet Love is still racing for his first win of the season — the only driver ranked among the top six in the standings without a victory.
The 21-year-old — who announced June 17 he’ll move into the NASCAR Cup Series’ No. 21 Wood Brothers Ford full-time next year — has had three runner-up finishes (Phoenix, Watkins Glen and Charlotte) and led the most laps at Nashville Superspeedway in May, only to finish 16th. He’s on a streak of three straight top-10 results and finished fifth after leading 31 laps at Atlanta in February.
Allgaier’s domination continues to be the storyline for the series. His five wins lead all drivers, but the 2024 series champ has endured a couple of recent “off days” by his standards, with sub-25th-place showings in two of the last three races.
The 2024 O’Reilly champion’s 457 laps led, 12 top fives and 15 top 10s — all best among full timers — have contributed to that unprecedented 195-point lead over Love and the field. That gap is bigger than the points difference from Love to Joe Gibbs Racing’s Brent Crews, who sits 12th in the table.
Hill, Love and Allgaier all expect to be challenged again by the defending race winner Creed, who is looking to gain points after a steady couple of months. He hasn’t led a lap since Talladega Superspeedway in April, but has three top-10 finishes in the last four races.
Only four races remain to set the 12-driver field for The Chase. And although Allgaier has secured a spot in the postseason, there is still a lot of movement possible on the other end of scale. Crews holds a 44-point lead over his JGR teammate William Sawalich for that 12th and final Chase position. Rajah Caruth is 48 points off Crews’ pace.
Qualifying is at 11 a.m. ET on Saturday (The CW App).