Austin Hill’s evening at Kentucky Speedway was cut short by an engine issue which relegated him to a 31st-place finish. Hill’s effort for consecutive top-five finishes was halted after completing 28 of 150 laps on Thursday evening.
After a loose handling condition hampered his qualifying effort and placed him 22nd on the starting grid, Hill immediately navigated his Toyota Tsusho Toyota Tundra towards the front of the field and cracked the top-15 on lap two. With less than 10 laps remaining in Stage 1, Hill reported his Tundra began to lose power and came to the attention of the HRE team on lap 27. He took his Toyota to the garage after 28 laps where crew chief Scott Zipadelli and company diagnosed the issue. Hill remains seventh in the championship standings with three races remaining before the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series playoffs.
Austin Hill Quote:“Practice was a struggle for us, but we were a lot better tonight. Scott (Zipadelli, crew chief) and the guys went in the right direction and I felt like we were definitely a top-10 truck. We could have been in contention once we got some track position, but unfortunately we never got to that point. It’s frustrating to have a motor issue that early, so hopefully we’re getting our bad luck out of the way before the playoffs.”
HRE PR
