Justin Marks has pushed back on suggestions that Shane van Gisbergen is in a heated rivalry with the Richard Childress Racing driver Austin Hill.

Speaking on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, the Trackhouse Racing team owner feels that the incident at Chicagoland Speedway is being exaggerated and turned into a far bigger narrative than it is.

“When I got on the plane to fly back to the race shop, I sat with Shane for a few minutes, and I am telling you, he was like, he hated that it happened, right? I mean, he was like, ‘Man, I did not expect that to happen.’ It's one of these things, like we saw it with Zane and with the 77, and you know, you're fighting for the bottom. It was pretty line-dependent getting into the corner there. 

"You know, he shot to the bottom, and it's just two people fighting over a piece of real estate. It's just kind of funny in our sport that it happens to, like, you know, a lot of times involve the same people, and then it sort of creates this, like, narrative," he added, while speaking to SiriusXM Radio.

He argued that such incidents are a result of hard racing instead of personal grudges, something that viewers do not believe because of a pattern of incidents between the two drivers. 

What happened was SVG bumped into Hill's rear, and the latter went spinning with race-ending damage. While SVG has maintained the stance that it was accidental, Hill felt it was intentional.

But Marks is not interested in taking this further. "Look, we're key partners with Richard Childress Racing, we work with RCR, we work with Hendrick, the drivers all get together, they don't just see each other on Sunday on the racetrack."

"I think at the end of the day...nobody wants to engage in a rivalry that jeopardizes the success of the company and all the sponsors and all the people that work hard to build good race cars for the racetrack."

The rivalry between van Gisbergen and Hill goes back to the COTA race in the 2024 NOAPS season, when the two were battling for position before making contact at Turn 15. This then progressed into Sonoma, where Hill gave SVG the finger during the latter’s victory lap. 

More recently, the two were involved at Naval Base Coronado, where both drivers were among the last to finish due to Hill slamming into Connor Zilisch, which left SVG barely any time to react, and then again at Chicagoland at Turn 3 and 4 while battling for position in traffic, which resulted in Hill’s car going into the outside wall. 

What Gluck and Bianchi said on the SVG-Hill beef

Speaking on The Teardown podcast, Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi discussed whether van Gisbergen's contact with Austin Hill warranted a penalty. Gluck pointed out that NASCAR had previously relied on ‘premeditated radio chatter’ to make a decision, something they believed was absent in SVG’s case. 

He said, “We saw what happened earlier this year with Ryan Preece and Ty Gibbs at Texas, another round-and-a-half racetrack. Is NASCAR stepping in here and penalize SVG for this? The problem is they have set a weird precedent with a premeditated radio chatter thing. Which does not exist in this case."

"Let's just take away all the quotes. It appears to me that SVG wrecked Austin Hill intentionally and got retaliation for being taken out previously. He's saying, 'I didn't do it.' So that is one thing where NASCAR says, 'Okay, well, we don't have that. There was no premeditated radio chatter. So yeah, we don't have that.'”

Gluck and Bianchi also debated whether this was a right rear hook, which would warrant a suspension, or a case of driving through a competitor, which is harder to police. But NASCAR found no evidence of intentional retaliation and therefore issued no penalties.

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Written by

Aaradhya Singh

Edited by

Suyashdeep Sason