Rolling for a Record … Austin Hill looks to keep his strong season rolling as the tour heads back to Pocono Raceway in search for his first win of the 2020 NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series campaign. The driver of the No. 16 Toyota Tsusho, Toyota Mobility Parts Toyota Tundra is the only driver to have tallied top-10 finishes in all five events thus far and aims to set a record for HRE. On three prior occasions, HRE has constructed top-10 steaks of six races (Martinsville 2017 – WWT Raceway 2017, Martinsville 2018 – Atlanta 2019, Homestead 2019 – Homestead 2020), and a similar performance by Hill on Saturday afternoon would establish a new mark for the organization with seven consecutive top-10 finishes.
Distancing from the Pack … Thanks to a seventh-place finish two weeks ago at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Hill has distanced himself from the rest of the pack with a 44-point advantage in the Gander Trucks championship standings. The driver of the No. 16 Toyota Tsusho Toyota Tundra enters the Pocono Mountains with the biggest point lead of his career and has scored points in nine of the 10 stages this season. Among series regulars, Hill tops the field in average finish (5.4), number of fastest-laps run (32), laps led (102), and driver rating (112.5). He’s focused to fill in the only missing category in his 2020 stat line: a victory to secure his place in the Gander Trucks playoffs.
Pocono History … The Winston, Ga. native has four previous starts at Pocono Raceway and has a best finish of 11th, which occurred in 2017 while driving for Young’s Motorsports. In his only Pocono appearance with HRE, Hill qualified on the pole last season by setting a new track record before a clutch issue halted his afternoon.
Chassis Selection … Chassis No. 007 will make its fourth-consecutive appearance at Pocono for the No. 16 team. Crew chief Scott Zipadelli and company debuted this Toyota Tundra on the 2.5-mile triangle in 2017 with Ryan Truex with a third-place finish. Hill earned the pole award in this Tundra at Pocono last season and hopes to wheel it to its fourth-career victory on Saturday afternoon.
Tune In … Round six of the 2020 season will be covered live on FOX Sports 1 on Saturday afternoon at 12:30 p.m. ET. Stay updated with Hill and the No. 16 team by following @Hattori_Racing on Twitter, Hattori Racing Enterprises on Facebook, and @hattoriracing on Instagram.
Austin Hill Quote:On entering Pocono as the only driver with five top-10’s:“We all want to break through with a win and lock ourselves into the playoffs. We were really fast at Pocono last year and hopefully we can put the full afternoon together this week and put Toyota Tsusho in victory lane. They’ve been such big supporters of our team for a while, and even got involved with our iRacing charity races during the break, so it’d be special to repay them with a win so close to their office in New York. I have a ton of confidence in Scott (Zipadelli) and these guys with their ability to have the truck close to where we need to be when the race starts, even without practice. I think that has been a big strength of ours since we’ve restarted the season, and will be even more important with such a short race at Pocono. We’ve done just about everything besides go to victory lane, and we have a great chance to do that this weekend.”
