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SVG Drifts in Celebration of Second Straight Xfinity Win, Austin Hill Watches From Rearview Mirror

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SVG Drifts in Celebration of 2nd Straight WinLogan Riely - Getty Images

After capturing his first pole in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, Shane Van Gisbergen goes back-to-back with his second series win at Sonoma. The Xfinity rookie's race-winning move came with 11 to go as he and Austin Hill started next to each other, and van Gisbergen forced Hill to put two tires into the dirt, sending Hill sliding back to fifth place while van Gisbergen pulled forward to clean air and the lead.

This was not the first time that Hill and van Gisbergen had gotten in each other's way on a road course; back in March at the Circuit of the Americas, van Gisbergen and Hill were swapping for the lead when they opened the door for Kyle Larson to win the first Xfinity race for the Hendrick No. 17 entry.

When van Gisbergen won at Portland last weekend, he imported his famed Supercar celebration stateside as he drifted his NO. 97 Xfinity stock car around the track before ultimately burning out his tires. At Sonoma, he repeated the celebration but with Hill directly in front of him. There is no love lost watching a competitor celebrate in your rearview mirror.

After the race, Hill declined to comment on the move. Two weekends back at Charlotte, a few post-race comments about his confrontation with Cole Custer, along with staying full throttle with Custer on his nose, got Hill into hot water online. While running in second in championship points, Hill has decided to attempt to stay out of the "keyboard warriors" crosshairs.

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"I’m going to leave it to the keyboard warriors on this. No matter what comment I say, it will be wrong," Hill told NASCAR on Fox.

Sheldon Creed, Sam Mayer, and Austin Green would end up separating van Gisbergen from Hill in the race's final results.

Earlier in the race, Ty Gibbs was suited to be the man for van Gisbergen to beat, breathing down his neck the entire first stage. Van Gisbergen led the first stage from wire to wire, but Gibbs would take the lead after the first round of pitstops under caution, with van Gisbergin falling back to eighth. It would take him the first half of the second stage to make it back up to Gibbs, and the Cup Series regular was able to hold on for the stage win with van Gisbergen in second. Through the second stage, van Gisbergen was fighting low voltage in his car, but the gremlin worked itself out before the stage three restart.

Strategy came into play in the final round, with the leaders hoping for cautions in order to stretch fuel until the end of the race. A 20+ car pile-up at the entry to turn two on the first restart gave them their wish. Gibbs, who restarted deep in the pack after a poor pitstop, would be one of the four drivers to retire from the race after the incident.

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