NASCAR has decided that the lap-47 collision that pitched Austin Hill into the Chicagoland wall did not cross the line into a penalty — and the ruling has done nothing to cool one of the season's angriest feuds.
Shane van Gisbergen's No. 97 got into the back of Hill's No. 33 as the Cup Series returned to Chicagoland, spinning the Richard Childress Racing driver hard into the barrier. Hill answered by door-slamming van Gisbergen under the resulting caution. When NASCAR released its weekly report on Tuesday, neither driver was sanctioned.
Mike Forde, NASCAR's managing director of racing communications, spelled out the reasoning. "There will not be a penalty to the 97 on this one," Forde said, before addressing whether the contact was deliberate: "there was nothing definitive that said this was 100-percent intentional, penalty-worthy, 'You need to put a stop to this.'"
Forde was equally relaxed about Hill's retaliation under yellow. "We look at that as emotion," he said. "Definitely is emotion, I would've done the same thing 30 years ago when I was a driver." Both drivers will still be summoned to the NASCAR hauler for a meeting before this weekend's race at Atlanta.
Hill left no doubt about how he read the incident. "I'm sure you all have seen the replay," he said. "If I need to explain it, people probably need to get glasses." Asked whether he expected NASCAR to act, he added: "Possibly. If there's definitive evidence. I'll leave it in NASCAR's hands."
Van Gisbergen, typically, was unruffled — and in no mood to smooth it over. "I'll talk to him, but he just grunts," the New Zealander said of Hill.
The loudest voice belonged to Childress. The RCR owner was captured on his driver's radio calling the contact "blatant," and afterwards framed it as retribution for an earlier run-in, insisting: "It was payback for California."
The no-call reopened a familiar complaint about consistency. Fans and analysts pointed out that NASCAR had penalized Ryan Preece and Ty Gibbs for a Texas incident earlier in the year, and the "double standard" charge trailed the decision across social media. The stakes are real: van Gisbergen sits roughly 30 points above the playoff cutline, and a points penalty would have dragged him to the edge of the fight for the final spot.
For now the paperwork is closed but the grievance is not. With Hill and van Gisbergen due in the same room before Atlanta — and Childress convinced the contact was deliberate — the feud looks set to carry into the second half of the season.
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*Originally published on [Motorsports Global](https://motorsports.global/article/nascar-clears-van-gisbergen-as-childress-alleges-payback). Visit for full coverage.*