True to his underdog stature, Timmy Hill drove to victory lane in the second eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational race at the virtual Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday afternoon using a decade-old Logitech G27 steering wheel attached to his home office desk.

He did so against a field of superstar stock car champions, many of them using state-of-the-art custom simulation rigs that replicate the authentic feel of a legitimate race car, but also cost tens of thousands of dollars.



The 27-year-old journeyman racer used a bump-and-run to take the lead from a dominant William Byron one lap after a restart with nine laps to go. He held off the field in an overtime restart to win the second nationally televised iRacing eNASCAR event.



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Hill currently drives for MBM Motorsports in the NASCAR Cup Series and enjoyed a dream Daytona Speedweeks in February. He raced his way into his first Daytona 500 and finished third in the season-opening Daytona Xfinity Series race with two underfunded programs.

Now, he’s an eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational winner: his 674th victory on the digital platform in his 1,677th start. He beat Ryan Preece to the finish line by .050 in a two-lap dash to the finish.

"Ryan Preece and Garrett Smithley are two excellent iRacers," Hill said after the iRace. "They put in a lot of practice. I knew they would be tough to beat."



Sean Gardner

"After the white flag, I knew how tough it was to pass into (turns three and four) and I knew if I could hold them off going into turn one, I could almost coast and drive to victory. That's all I was focusing. I held those guys off in one and two and got a good run in three and four.

"I couldn't be more excited. 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."

Smithley, Landon Cassill and Alex Bowman completed the top five ahead of Dale Earnhardt Jr.

The race was much cleaner than the series debut last week at the virtual Homestead-Miami Speedway, with professional drivers spending a tremendous amount of practice time on the simulator in the days leading up to the race.



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There were only five caution flags for 21 laps, the first yellow not waving until lap 27 from a multi-car incident involving Kyle Busch, Christopher Bell and Michael McDowell.

The second caution came out on lap 39 for Anthony Alfredo. The most notable incident took place with 16 laps to go when Daniel Suárez appeared to have intentionally attempted to crash Ty Dillon.

He was parked by race control for his actions but blamed the crash on his dog jumping into his lap.

That’s not a typo.

"That was way better than what I was expecting," Suárez said in a tweet. "We were racing in the top 10 and the top five. It was good, we pit for tires and thought we were going to finish in the top five.

"Then Ty Dillon wrecked me. I'm sure he was on old tires or it wasn't intentional. Emma (the dog) then jumped up on the wheel and got me disqualified. I'm looking forward to next week."

This is the second race in a row in which Byron has led the most laps in the eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series.



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Led most laps, got moved outa the way. We’ll get him back next time! Thanks @AxaltaRacing @Hendrick24Team — William Byron (@WilliamByron) March 29, 2020

Does Hill expect some kind of retaliation next week at the virtual Bristol Motor Speedway and beyond?

"In this situation, we've never really raced each other," Hill said. "In real life we're on two completely different levels of competition. So, this is a unique situation where we were kind of competing for the win in the closing laps. I think that kind of changes the element and style of racing …

"For me it was a situation where I don't get the chance to win much on this big of a platform. I told myself, If I have a chance to win any race, NASCAR, short track level, if it came down to it, that's what I would do. It doesn't change because it was iRacing. That's what I would do in real life.

"Going forward, I'm sure William isn't happy about it. I'm sure he'll do the same back to me. Reverting back to what I said before, you race others how they race you. I'll probably get a lot of abuse going forward. I'll have to accept that. But that's in the future. I'm kind of living in the present and happy to get the win."

And regardless of digital or actual, it’s a NASCAR win for one of the sport’s true underdogs, using some of the oldest equipment in iRacing.



Timmy Hill Twitter

"I bought this wheel 12 years ago when I was branching into NASCAR," Hill said. "It cost me 300 bucks back then. It's been a great wheel. Hats off to Logitech. Actually, this wheel is obsolete. If I were to break it, I would have to get a different type of wheel. They're on a whole different model now.

"I'm used to it. It's my favorite. If it ain't broken, I typically don't fix it. It's neat to beat up on these guys with these big, massive, expensive setups. I think for the viewers, it's neat for them because they can understand that they don't have to spend that huge dollar amount to get into iRacing.

"I think 80% of the viewers or iRacers that are on the service, I think they're probably on similar setups to what I got. I think they relate to a lot of the average racers a lot more because they're on a similar rig than I'm on, a wheel tied to a desk, up in my little man cave upstairs.

"I think it really shows this is a very inexpensive way to get involved in racing. I'm excited to kind of show that off."

1. Timmy Hill [10]

2. Ryan Preece [7]

3. Garrett Smithley [12]

4. Landon Cassill [5]

5. Alex Bowman [20]

6. Dale Earnhardt Jr. [2]

7. William Byron [1]

8. John Hunter Nemechek [3]

9. Kyle Larson [27]

10. Kurt Busch [30]

11. Clint Bowyer [15]

12. Parker Kligerman [4]

13. Bobby Labonte [6]

14. Michael McDowell [11]

15. Matt DiBenedetto [16]

16. Ty Dillon [24]

17. Kyle Busch [19]

18. Chris Buescher [18]

19. Jimmie Johnson [25]

20. Chase Elliott [28]

21. Erik Jones [22]

22. Ross Chastain [33]

23. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. [31]

24. Denny Hamlin [17]

25. Bubba Wallace [29]

26. Alex Labbe [32]

27. Ryan Blaney [26]

28. Tyler Reddick [13]

29. Austin Dillon [8]

30. Ty Majeski [34]

31. Rubén García Jr. [21]

32. Greg Biffle [35]

33. Daniel Suárez [9]

34. Christopher Bell [14]

35. Anthony Alfredo [23]

Lead Changes: 14 among nine different drivers

Lap Leader(s): William Byron 1-17, John Hunter Nemechek 18-20, William Byron 21-40, Denny Hamlin 41-43, Chase Elliott 44, William Byron 45-52, Ryan Preece 53-59, John Hunter Nemechek 60-66, William Byron 67-87, Ryan Preece 88, Ty Majeski 89, Michael McDowell 90-92, Dale Earnhardt Jr. 93-106, William Byron 107-121, Timmy Hill 122-130.

Laps Led: William Byron 81, Dale Earnhardt Jr. 14, John Hunter Nemechek 10, Timmy Hill 9, Ryan Preece 8, Denny Hamlin 3, Michael McDowell 3, Chase Elliott 1, Ty Majeski 1.

Caution Flags: Five for 21 laps.

Margin of Victory: .050 seconds

Average Speed: 133.776 mph



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