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Zero Pressure for Hill at Talladega

No Pressure and Stress Free … The most unpredictable and nerve-racking event of the season at Talladega Superspeedway will be completely stress free for Austin Hill. The driver of the No. 16 United Rentals Toyota Tundra punched his ticket to Round 2 of the NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series playoffs with his second victory of the season last Friday night at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (LVMS). Saturday afternoon’s cutoff race will not carry any pressure for Hill and the HRE team as they will be chasing a checkered flag and playoff points to pad their point reset in Round 2 of the playoffs, which begins at Kansas Speedway.  

Back to Form … Hill and company returned to their relentless form last Friday night after running outside the top-10 at the first stage to fight their way back into contention and ultimately drove to victory lane at LVMS. The victorious performance was a bold response to Hill’s 25th-place finish at Bristol Motor Speedway and rekindled the team’s success at intermediate tracks. In the last seven Gander Trucks races, Hill has tallied three podium finishes, four top-five’s and has only one finish worse than eighth. He enters Talladega with an opportunity to begin Round 2 of the playoffs as the top seed if he’s able to earn at least two playoff points on Saturday afternoon.

Superspeedway History …  Three of Hill’s 92 Gander Truck starts have come at NASCAR’s largest speedway. He has two top-10 finishes in those three appearances, including a track best sixth-place result last season in his first Talladega start driving the No. 16 United Rentals Tundra. While he’s looking for his first top-five at Talladega, he scored his first-career victory at Daytona International Speedway (DIS) last season and has top-10 finishes in four of his seven starts between the two superspeedway venues.  

Chassis Selection … Hill will pilot chassis No. 012 on Saturday for the second time this season. He previously drove this Toyota Tundra in the season-opening event at DIS and finished sixth. This chassis is purpose built for superspeedway racing and will make its second ever appearance this weekend. 

Tune In … Coverage from the world’s biggest superspeedway will begin with NASCAR Raceday on FOX Sports 1 at 12:30 p.m. ET followed by the green flag at 1:00 p.m. ET. Stay updated with Hill and the No. 16 United Rentals team by following @Hattori_Racing on Twitter, Hattori Racing Enterprises on Facebook, and @hattoriracing on Instagram.

Austin Hill Quote:

On entering Talladega with an automatic berth in to Round 2:

“We’ve had fast United Rentals Tundras in the three superspeedway races that I’ve run with this group, but it sure is nice to have a win under our belt and not have to worry about points this weekend. We can be really aggressive and race for stage wins and a trophy on Saturday, which will be a nice feeling that we haven’t had in the playoffs before. But at the same time, superspeedway racing is always really intense and wild when you get down to the last 20 laps or so. There will be quite a few desperate guys needing a win really bad, so we’ll have to match that to get to victory lane. Playoff points and a win is really all that matters for us, so we’re going to do everything we can to get it done. This team is so good at responding to adversity and we showed that last week, so we’re ready to go for the next round and try to get ourselves to Phoenix.”