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Timmy Hill talks 2020 plans and first year as a driver and owner

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By Sarah Handy, Staff Writer

NASCAR driver Timmy Hill remained quite busy through out the 2019 season having been one of a handful of drivers to spend time racing in all three of NASCAR’s top series. In addition to his driving duties, 2019 marked the first season in which Hill and his younger brother Tyler Hill debuted their own Hill Motorsports team in the NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series.

Timmy made five starts in the No. 56 Chevrolet for Hill Motorsports earning one top-five at Martinsville, his first top-five of his career and three top-20 finishes.

His brother Tyler on the other hand made four starts in the No. 56 Chevrolet with one top-15 and two top-20 results. The younger Hill’s best finish of the season was an 11th place finish at Kentucky Speedway in July.

Overall, Hill said both he and his brother Tyler were happy with how their first season as owners and drivers had played out.

“Truly we made all the races that we attempted to do which was going to be a tough side of things. That was our biggest stress point more than anything. All the races we attempted, we made which was great,” said Hill. “As a start up team you dread missing a race or several races because obviously it’s big blow to your pocketbook. It’s hard as a start up deal to re regroup from that. We wanted to race top-15 that was our main goal. I figured we had that kind of speed, some of the races we couldn’t put together, then some races we put together better than we thought. All in all, I think we’ve met our goals as far as speed goes, a Top-five at Martinsville was definitely a big shot in the arm for us, we weren’t expecting that.”

Read more: Timmy Hill earns first career NASCAR top-five at Martinsville: https://kickinthetires.net/timmy-hill-earns-first-career-nascar-top-five-at-martinsville/

Many might not realize how much this small team went on to accomplish in their first year.

“It’s me and my crew chief Greg in the race shop. Even my brother (Tyler). At times we get really jammed up, at the beginning of the year January through March I was really jammed up as far as trying to get trucks done so he came down from Maryland because he still lives there to help me out,” said Hill. “Basically, from March on it’s been me and my crew chief in the shop, it’s just a two-man job. Part of my week I have to go down to Carl’s as well (MBM Motorsports). Some days it’s even a one-man job so some days, so everything we’re doing, and accomplishing is really beyond what other teams could even imagine.”

Hill Motorsports will be back in the NASCAR Gander RV and Outdoors Truck Series in 2020 with the goal to run the full schedule with both brothers spitting seat time.

“We’re really trying to build our program and add more races. Our goal next year is to run full-time. We’re certainly going to try (for full-time) the only question mark we have right now is whether we can get a superspeedway truck put together for Daytona,” said Hill. “If we can’t do that, we might have to skip Daytona, but our goal is to at least run the second race and run the rest after that. We’ll see what we can build and what we can come up with through the winter as far as Daytona goes.”

While the brothers haven’t decided which races, they’ll each run next season, Hill gave some insight into what he would like to run given the choice.

“With the trucks going back to Richmond its really neat, I’d really like to run that race, I’m sure Tyler does as well so we’ll probably be fighting over that one, but that’s one I really want to go too” said Hill.

Hill spent a majority of 2019 racing in the NASCAR Xfinity Series for Carl Long’s MBM Motorsports. In 25 starts this season, Hill earned one top-10 and seven top-20 finishes.

The Maryland native’s seventh-place finish at Bristol Motor Speedway in August was the fourth top-10 of his NASCAR Xfinity Series career and it came with a collaboration with Hattori Racing Enterprises in the No. 61 Toyota.

Read more: Timmy Hill ties career best finish with HRE collaboration: https://kickinthetires.net/timmy-hill-ties-career-best-finish-with-hre-collaboration/

Hill stated at Homestead that he will be back with MBM Motorsports in 2020.

“MBM definitely wants me back. We’re still trying to sort through the structure and what we’re doing next year. This year we ran four Xfinity cars and a part time Cup team. We’re trying to figure out what is best for the race team,” said Hill.

“Carl, Johnny Jackson, and everybody other here is trying to put together a solid game plan. Whether that means with Xfinity cutting back from 38 races to 36 whether we should cut back on Xfinity and run more Cup or focus on more Xfinity and less Cup. It’s still kind of up in the air. MBM has the inventory to run Cup and Xfinity I think it’s just trying to figure the direction for 2020. The sky is the limit, I’ve seen great things with both programs, and I’ve been a part of great things with both programs. I’m excited to see what we can do there. I’ll definitely be busy next year and heavily involved with MBM.”

With the off-season many drivers and their families will travel and spend some much-needed time together before the season officially starts up again. Hill told Kickin’ the Tires his off season plans.

“I always look forward to going to Thanksgiving and Christmas and see my family. I’m the only one out of my family that lives in North Carolina. I typically don’t get to see them unless they come to a race, I’ll get to enjoy that and spend some time with my wife” said Hill.

“She’s a school teacher, so when they take winter break for school, we get to spend a lot of time together then so that’ll be nice as well. We’re still going to be focused, a lot of hard work, I just bought two more trucks, we’ve got to build those trucks and make sure their prepared and ready to go for next year. One thing I didn’t have this year that I’d like to have is a pit box. Fortunate enough for us, MBM let me us theirs, very kind but there’s some races that trucks go to where I won’t have one, we’re looking at maybe building one of those, it’ll take a lot of time.”

The post Timmy Hill talks 2020 plans and first year as a driver and owner appeared first on Kickin' The Tires.


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