Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series (NXS) return to Darlington Raceway marks the first appearance at NASCAR’s oldest superspeedway for HRE and Austin Hill. The driver of the No. 61 Toyota Tsusho Toyota Supra will meet “The Lady in Black” for the first time when the green flag drops on Saturday afternoon and will make his fourth NXS start of the season. A Darlington debut is a tall task for any driver, but Hill plans to make the most of his first trip to the track “Too Tought to Tame” as a learning experience to benefit his effort in the Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series race on Sunday afternoon.
Xfinity Series Effort … The Winston, Ga. native rejoins the NXS field for the first time since season’s resumption at Charlotte Motor Speedway on May 25th and will be pulling double duty at Darlington. Hill will log 200 miles worth of experience to carry over to the No. 16 United Rentals Toyota Tundra on Sunday as he continues to chase the Gander Trucks regular season honors. Darlington will mark the first event in a string of six NXS races that Hill plans to contest through the balance of the 2020 campaign. In four previous NXS appearances, Hill has a career-best finish of ninth which came in his series debut at Indianapolis Motor Speedway last September.
Chassis Selection… Crew chief Scott Zipadelli and the Toyota Tsusho team will debut a brand-new Toyota Supra from the HRE fleet. Chassis No. 003 is specifically constructed for intermediate-style speedways and will make it’s first appearance as a No. 61 Toyota Supra on Saturday afternoon.
Tune In … Hill’s return to NXS competition will air live on NBC at 12:30 p.m. ET with pre-race coverage beginning at 12:00 p.m. ET on NBC with Countdown to Green. Stay updated with Hill and the No. 61 Toyota Tsusho team by following @Hattori_Racing on Twitter, Hattori Racing Enterprises on Facebook, and @hattoriracing on Instagram.
Austin Hill Quote:On returning to the NXS for double duty at Darlington:“I’ve never been to Darlington before, so this weekend will be a pretty big challenge. It’s great to get back in the Xfinity Series and to have Toyota Tsusho back on board our Supra. It’s obviously one of the most difficult places to get around and make speed on the schedule. It’s going to be a big benefit to run the Xfinity race to get laps and seat time before the truck race. I’d say Darlington is about the hardest place to jump in and make your first start there without any practice or qualifying. It’ll be interesting for sure, but we’ll work up to it the first stage and try to improve on our Toyota Tsusho Supra throughout the day. This is a new car for our Xfinity program. All the guys at HRE have put a ton of work into this, so hopefully we can have a solid day, get a good finish, and keep building our program.”
HRE PR
