Timmy Hill’s may not be a common one in NASCAR Cup Series competition. The driver who has piloted entries for underfunded teams in NASCAR’s top series, though, is one of the best in the virtual world of iRacing with over 600 wins. And Hill’s fellow-NASCAR competitors are on his turf now, as NASCAR has turned to iRacing to fill the void left by the coronavirus postponement of real-life racing with its eNASCAR Pro Invitational Series. Sunday, Hill claimed a virtual win at the virtual Texas Motor Speedway in the O’Reilly Auto Parts 125, the second race of the newly created eNASCAR series.
“I couldn’t be more excited,” Hill said “Very exciting times for us, because we just don’t get the recognition on a normal basis. To be on an even playing field is excellent. To be on this platform, the Cup platform, is exciting. The amount of folks that reached out to me has just been tremendous.”
The win was Hill’s 674th on the iRacing platform.
Hill took the lead when he bumped William Byron on lap 121 of the race that was scheduled for 125 laps but extended to 130 laps by an overtime restart.
Ryan Preece took second from Garrett Smithley in the final two green-flag laps after the overtime restart. Smithley was third. Landon Cassill and Alex Bowman rounded out the top-five.
“The race was really exciting,” Hill said. “The last lap basically was a two-lap run to the finish — green-white-checkered. I had to fight off Ryan Preece and Garrett Smithley, two excellent iRacers. They put in a lot of practice. I knew they would be tough to beat.”
Before the bump by Hill, Byron dominated the race, leading 80 laps. He wound up seventh. Byron also led the most laps in the first series race a week ago at virtual Homestead-Miami Speedway but wound up 34th, second to last.
Byron led most of the race until a second caution for Anthony Alfredo on lap 39. Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott and Ty Dillon opted to stay out during the caution and restarted up front. On older tires, though, they drifted back, and Byron retook his lead on lap 45.
Preece and John Hunter Nemechek each led laps between laps 54 and 69 before Byron reassumed his position up front and ran there until pitting under green on lap 89. Dale Earnhardt Jr. remained on the race track until making his green-flag stop just past lap 105, turning the lead back over to Byron.
Earnhardt finished sixth. Nemechek, Kyle Larson and Kurt Busch finsihed eighth through 10th.
