John Hunter Nemechek may have a sizable advantage in Playoff points, but Austin Hill certainly carries the momentum from two recent victories into the Round of 10 of the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Playoffs, which opens with Friday’s Toyota 200 presented by CK Power at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway (9 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.)
After stepping down from the NASCAR Cup Series and taking a Truck Series ride with Kyle Busch Motorsports, Nemechek won five of the first 13 races this season, at Las Vegas, Richmond, Charlotte, Texas and Pocono.
But Hill has won the last two events, on dirt at Knoxville Raceway and in a weather-shortened road course race at Watkins Glen.
So who has the edge as the Playoff begins at 1.25-mile World Wide Technology Raceway? To Hill, that’s a difficult question to answer.
“Honestly, when you get to these Playoffs, the wins that you had in the regular season don’t really matter,” he said. “Obviously, you get those bonus points, and that helps you start the Playoffs, but the wins that you had prior to the Playoffs don’t matter a lot.
“You need to go win races in the Playoffs now, and the races that we are going to, a lot of them are a lot different than where we ran in the regular season… I personally feel like we have the upper hand on everybody. I feel like we can compete with the 4 team (Nemechek), and I feel like we are the team that they need to be worried about the most.”
After the reset to start the Playoffs, Nemechek enters the Round of 10 with 2,049 points to 2,021 for Hill and 2,019 for third-place Ben Rhodes. The 28-point advantage Nemechek holds in Playoff points certainly gives him a leg up on the championship.
“It’s definitely nice to be called the favorite, but at the same time, just because we are called the favorite doesn’t mean that we stop working,” Nemechek said. “There’s a lot of work, a lot of detailed work, a lot of execution, a lot of optimizations from week-in and week-out, studying, a lot of things that go in to making you the favorite.
“For us, we are humble. We want to continue to win races and for myself, I’ve been the underdog. I’ve had that mind-set, and now we are kind of the favorite going into it. We have to go perform. We can’t beat ourselves. We’ve had the championship mind-set from the first race of the year, and now we are going to continue to do so.”
Source: Reid Spencer / NASCAR Wire Service
