By Dustin Albino

Over the last three seasons, Austin Hill has been a frontrunner in the Camping World Truck Series, competing for Hattori Racing Enterprises. But like 2019 and 2020, expect to see the Georgia native in select events for the Xfinity Series at some point this year.

Ahead of this weekend’s Truck race at Kansas Speedway, Hill spent time with the media via a Zoom call. On the call, he confirmed he will run in Xfinity at some point this season, likely with HRE, though isn’t sure of when and where.

“We are planning on running a few Xfinity races. I don‘t know the number yet,” Hill said. “I don‘t really know exactly when the first one is going to be. We are going to run here, hopefully, in the next couple of months. We are planning on running a handful of them.. It is probably going to be out of the HRE (Hattori Racing Enterprises) stable, which is awesome.

“I think we can run up front in the Xfinity Series. I think we can really compete and run inside the top-10 and potentially top-five. We are capable of doing it, and hopefully, whenever we go out there for our first weekend, we can run up front and have a good showing.”

Since 2019, Hill has competed in 10 Xfinity races. Last October at Kansas, he earned his first top-five finish, adding a ninth-place result at Darlington Raceway earlier in the year. In his series debut at Indianapolis Motor Speedway two years ago, he finished ninth.

Shigeaki Hattori, owner of HRE, is the listed owner of the No. 61 car in Xfinity this season. However, the team has a working relationship with MBM Motorsports, owned by Carl Long. The No. 61 car has had Chad Finchum, David Starr, Robby Lyons and Stephen Leicht all compete in it this season.

Through six Truck races this season, Hill sits fourth in the championship standings, earning a best finish of second at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

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