This isn’t Days of Thunder; the 1990 Tom Cruise NASCAR flick where it’s implied that the fictional driver, Cole Trickle, just needs to mash the gas, turn left, and hang on, prior to his superspeedway debut. If you haven’t seen the movie, there’s a lot of fender-banging, paint-swapping, crashes, smashes, and bashes as Cruise’s character learns how to handle a big American stock car on the NASCAR circuit.
This is the REAL deal at Charlotte Motor Speedway, and the stage is Memorial Day Weekend, when just about all eyes in the motorsports world will be on the Queen City’s jewel of a race track. With a three-day slate of racing, beginning with the NC Education Lottery 200 on Friday night and culminating in the longest race on the NASCAR schedule, the Coca-Cola 600 on Sunday afternoon, the stakes couldn’t be much higher for a driver making his debut at “America’s Home for Racing.”
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Tyler Hill, the younger brother of NASCAR driver and Hill Motorsports co-owner Timmy Hill, will make his first-ever start Friday night at 8:30 pm in the No. 56 LeithCars.com Toyota Tundra at Charlotte. As he told us in a recent interview for our Zero to 60TV series, Tyler has raced on the quarter-mile infield track at Charlotte as a kid in what is known as a Legends car, a three-quarter-sized version of a 1930s Ford coupe or sedan that uses a high-revving Yamaha engine under its hood for motivation.
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But this weekend will be the first time he’s raced on the 1.5-mile high-banked superspeedway oval at Charlotte, where he’ll be piloting a V8-powered race truck with over 600 ponies under the hood. Hill should be good for some 180+ mph runs down the backstretch with that kind of power beneath his right foot. Tyler Hill’s race truck will carry a patriotic paint scheme in honor of our fallen heroes too, continuing a tradition that Timmy Hill started a few years back when he has driven the No. 56 on Memorial Day Weekend.
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Unlike Days of Thunder, they’ll be no “rubbin’s racing” advice from older brother Timmy on Friday night, but more likely, a calm, cool, and focused message to keep his Toyota race truck in the best line possible, make calculated moves to gain position, and to save his equipment for the end of the race in order to make a final push towards the checkered flag.
Watch our latest LeithCars.com episode of Zero to 60TV featuring Tyler Hill and Timmy Hill of Hill Motorsports and follow our @LeithCars social channels as well as @HillMotorsports56 for coverage before, during, and after the race.
The NC Education Lottery 200 can be seen on FSI and heard on the Motorsports Racing Network and Sirius/XM beginning at 8 pm Friday night, May 26th.
Written by Mark Arsen for LeithCars.com.
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