By: Zach Catanzareti, Staff Writer
BRISTOL, Tenn. — With various top teams dropping out, Saturday’s Food City 300 from Bristol Motor Speedway became an opportunity race for the small teams of the Xfinity Series.
One of whom was Timmy Hill and MBM Motorsports, who scored a seventh-place finish under the lights at the Tennessee half-mile after outlasting attrition and late restarts.
The result tied Hill’s highest in 180 Xfinity starts and was his first top-10 finish outside Daytona.
“For me, I’ve had three or four top 10s but they’re all on superspeedway races. A lot of the guys say it’s luck,” Hill said. “I really feel like tonight we earned this finish. We worked hard, drove our guts out and earned this one.”
Driving the No. 61 Toyota, the team debuted a collaboration with Hattori Racing Enterprises, the championship-winning Gander Outdoors Truck Series team who aided the entry into higher contention Saturday.
“I found myself running with a lot of bigger teams that normally we can’t run with,” he said. “HRE coming in collaboration, I think that worked really well. It gave me a better effort this weekend.”
Hill noticed multiple benefits of HRE’s contributions at Bristol.
“It allowed us to really compare notes and — with the help of Toyota Tsusho, gave us more tires we normally don’t have,” he said. “Normally, we’re running on 40-50-lap scuff tires so that certainly helped to have some fresh tires to put on it.
“This collaboration came together this week. I couldn’t say it kicked off any better than it did. These guys work really well together, I cant thank them enough. I think all the results really showed tonight.”
In terms of HRE’s collaboration with MBM, the future is up in the air.
“It’s hard to tell right now. It’s kind of undecided,” he said of future races. “Hopefully, after tonight’s run we can put our heads together and see what we can come up with.
“Most people who know me know I smile quite a bit. I have a long drive back home so I’m sure I’ll talk to my wife and family throughout the night — really cherish this moment.”