Unfortunate Circumstances Relegate Austin Hill to 22nd Place Finish at Talladega Superspeedway

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It was not the finish Austin Hill wanted in his fifth NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (NCWTS) race, but the 22nd place finish at Talladega Superspeedway did provide the young driver with valuable on-track experience in one of NASCAR’s premiere series.

Hill, a NASCAR Next member and K&N Pro Series East driver, is piloting Empire Racing Group’s No. 82 ­­­Ford F-150 in three NCWTS races late in the season to gain experience in the Truck Series.

Talladega Superspeedway was a race that Hill was looking forward to as he partnered with ERG for the season-opener at Daytona International Speedway.  The No. 82 Ford was very fast in the Florida event but Hill was involved in an accident early in the race, which put him out early – not allowing him to secure valuable track time.

At Talladega, practice went very well for the No. 82 team on Friday to start the race weekend.  Only minor adjustments were made on the truck and Hill secured the second fastest lap of the day during the final practice session. 

“During practice, we did single car runs to practice and drafted,” said Hill.  “The truck didn’t have that great of speed in the single car runs, but it drafted really well.  I could get a good draft and the truck sucked up well to the truck in front of me.  From our practice times, we knew we were going to qualify anywhere from 18th to 24th position.”

The team qualified 22nd on Saturday for the Fred’s 250 race, which Hill expected following his practice runs.

“Our game plan going in to the race was to get to the bottom and ride on that line,” explained Hill.  “We saw that the top line was moving so we went up there and tried it out.  That helped us get to around 15th and 16th position for a good portion of the race.  We were planning to be ready to race up to the front with 10 or 15 laps to go.”

It wasn’t until Lap 72, when the day started to go sour.  The No. 82 ran out of fuel and Hill had trouble restarting the truck – losing valuable time and positions on the track.

“At the start of the race, we ran our game plan to be conservative at the beginning,” explained Empire Racing Group crew chief, Mike “Grumpy” Cheek.  “We had a fast truck all weekend. On our second pit stop, we had a miss on the fuel and did not fill the truck all the way up. At that point we were just holding on to finish the race.”

“We had a good truck that drafted really well,” Hill said.  “If we didn’t have that issue, I think we could have had a solid Top-10 finish.  It’s a bummer to have that happen, but that’s racing.  It was good to get a lot of laps in during the race and I’m looking forward to Martinsville next weekend.”

Empire Racing Group and Austin Hill will partner for two more races in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.  Next on the schedule for the driver and team is the Kroger 200 at Martinsville Speedway on Oct. 31.

Empire Racing PR

Speedway Digest Staff
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