Hill Seeks More Road Course Success at the ROVAL

Road Course Run … Austin Hill returns to the NASCAR Xfinity Series (NXS) on HRE’s home asphalt at Charlotte Motor Speedway (CMS) for his second career start on the 2.28-mile ROVAL configuration. The driver of the No. 61 AISIN Toyota Supra has shown serious strength in his road course racing exploits this season across the ARCA Menards Series, NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, and NXS. He scored his first-career Camping World Trucks road course win at Watkins Glen International (WGI) in August and has two runner-up finishes in ARCA competition this season. Hill made his first NXS road course appearance of the season at Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) in August when a mechanical issue brought an early end to his outing.
 
Xfinity Download … The CMS ROVAL is one of two races remaining on Hill’s NXS agenda this season. In the three previous starts this season, Hill delivered a high mark of ninth at Nashville Superspeedway in June. He and the HRE team posted a best-finish of fifth last fall at Kansas Speedway and hope to capture their first top-10 finish on a road course on Saturday afternoon. Hill has significantly bolstered his road course resume this season and brings a stat line to the CMS ROVAL that includes top-five finishes at three different venues in Camping World Trucks competition. The winningest driver in HRE’s history looks to parlay his Camping World Trucks road course success over to the No. 61 AISIN Toyota Supra.
 
Season to Date … Saturday’s annual stop at the CMS ROVAL marks Hill’s fourth NXS start of the season and his third career NXS road course start. He has captured two Camping World Trucks victories this year along with seven top-five and 13 top-10 finishes. Hill sits 10th in the Camping World Trucks driver standings but is in contention to place HRE’s No. 16 Toyota Tundra in the owner points championship finale at Phoenix Raceway.
 
Chassis Selection … Crew chief Dave McCarty and the AISIN team will utilize chassis No. 005 this weekend. Hill drove this chassis at the IMS road course where a mechanical issue relegated him to a 29th-place finish. Saturday’s 67-lap event will mark this Toyota Supra’s second appearance in competition under the HRE banner.
 
Tune In … Coverage from CMS kicks off at 2:30 p.m. ET on NBC with Countdown to Green. NBC will also carry race coverage immediately following at 3:00 p.m. ET. Stay connected with the No. 61 AISIN team by following @Hattori_Racing on Twitter, @hattoriracing on Instagram, and Hattori Racing Enterprises on Facebook. 
 
Austin Hill Quote:
On road course success this season:
“We’ve had a lot of great runs on road courses this year in the truck and ARCA car. We’ve learned a few things and it’s helped me as a driver running several different road course races. We didn’t get the result that we wanted at Indy, but I think we have a good shot to run well with our AISIN Supra on Saturday. It’s an incredibly treacherous racetrack with a lot of tight sections and not much room to correct a mistake. There’s a couple blind corners and some really hard braking zones in there too. We’ll be coming from the back, so we need to take care of our Toyota Supra, keep the fenders on it, and make sure we’re methodical coming up through the field.”
 
HRE PR