HILL, RHODES DRIVE TO TOP-10 FINISHES IN THE TOYOTA TUNDRA 225
John Hunter Nemechek continues to lead the point standings
AUSTIN, Texas (May 22, 2021) – Austin Hill (ninth) and Ben Rhodes (10th) scored top-10 finishes in the Toyota Tundra 225 at Circuit of the Americas on Saturday afternoon.
Toyota Racing Post-Race Recap
NASCAR Camping World Truck Series
Circuit of the Americas
Race 9 of 23 – 42 Laps, 143.220 Miles
TOYOTA FINISHING POSITIONS
1st, Todd Gilliland*
2nd, Kaz Grala*
3rd, Tyler Ankrum*
4th, Grant Enfinger*
5th, Sheldon Creed*
9th, AUSTIN HILL
10th, BEN RHODES
11th, PAUL MENARD
12th, JOHN HUNTER NEMECHEK
15th, MATT CRAFTON
17th, STEWART FRIESEN
18th, PARKER CHASE
21st, DEREK KRAUS
22nd, JOHNNY SAUTER
23rd, LAWLESS ALAN
29th, MICHELE ABBATE
33rd, CHANDLER SMITH
35th, CHRISTIAN ECKES
*non-Toyota driver
TOYOTA QUOTES
AUSTIN HILL, No. 16 United Rentals Toyota Tundra, Hattori Racing Enterprises
Finishing Position: 9th
Battled back from a first lap spin for a top-10 finish. How was the race as a whole?
“We knew we weren’t going to fire off the best. We had more of a long run truck than anything, even in the rain. It was hard to run really fast lap times in the first two or three laps. Once we got into a rhythm and heat got in the tires, we were a little better. On lap 1, I got turned. I went from running like eighth or ninth all the way to last. When you get behind like that, and we had a lot of left rear damage, so I kind of lost a lot of downforce because of that. We couldn’t really lean on the left rear through the right handers and we were really free through there because of it. So it just got us behind on the day. We got up inside the top-10, and I thought we were going to have a shot at a solid top-five, but on that last restart, we got to battling and got some damage and it would just take too long to get going. We lost a little bit of track position. Once we got into line, we were okay. To salvage a top-10 is a good day for us, especially with everything considering that we had happen. We’re just frustrated right now. We want to win races, so to finish ninth is not really good. I wanted to get a win out here in Texas with the Tundras being build just down the road. It would have met a lot to us, but we have Texas Motor Speedway coming up, so maybe we can get one then.”
BEN RHODES, No. 99 Bombardier Toyota Tundra, ThorSport Racing
Finishing Position: 10th
Stage win and another top-10 finish. How was your race as a whole?
“We’ve got some stuff that we have to go back and work on our Bombardier Toyota Tundra, just our front-end package. It looks like some of these guys were able to hold their platform a little bit better than us, but we will do some homework and get that better. There were almost two separate races going on. You had the top-four that were running a separate race on strategy – forgoing state points to get the win. We wanted to kind of do a big picture race here since we were a fifth-to-sixth place truck on speed. We ended up going for the stage win – we got that – and we ran well in the first stage and that will offset having to start in the very back and have to work our way to the front. It was a big picture race for us. A little more of a strategy race than you usually see in the Truck Series with two separate races going on in the top-five. All-in-all, I’m happy for our team. It was a good solid day. We finished in front of some people that we needed to finish in front of and we really just maximized the day for the speed that we had.”
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