CUP: Significant handling issues leave Timmy Hill the sole retiree in Darlington
by Brock Beard / LASTCAR.info Editor-in-Chief
PHOTO: Garage 66 / Motorsports Business Management, @MBMMotorsports
Timmy Hill picked up the 17th last-place finish of his NASCAR Cup Series career in Sunday’s Goodyear 400 at the Darlington Raceway when his #66 Auto Direct USA Ford fell out with handling issues after he competed 52 of 293 laps.
The finish, which came in Hill’s 145th series start, was his first of the season and first in a Cup Series race since March 14, 2021 at Phoenix, 181 races ago. In the Cup Series’ last-place rankings, it was the 57th from handling issues, the 72nd for the #66, and the 769th for Ford. Across NASCAR’s top three series, it was the 97th for the #66, the 130th from handling issues, and the 1,087th for Ford.
In the five years since he was last featured in a Cup Series article here, Hill has increasingly focused on his family’s Hill Motorsports team, where he’s continued to compete in the Truck Series and has also expanded into the ARCA Menards Series East. As a result, Hill has scored a top-ten finish in each of the last three Truck Series seasons, even when he scaled back to an eight-race schedule last season. All three were 8th-place finishes, which came at Atlanta, Daytona, and just last fall at Darlington. That Darlington weekend marked only his third and most recent Cup start in the current NextGen car, where he finished 35th for Carl Long’s team Garage 66.
Just like last fall, Hill would run double-duty between the Truck Series and Cup Series races at Darlington. He began the weekend with a solid 14th-place showing in the Trucks on Friday, leading three laps thanks to some aggressive tire strategy in the closing stages. On the Cup side, Hill piloted the only “open” car on the entry list. He debuted a new black-and-white paint scheme with sponsorship from the Auto Direct USA Network. The company only sponsored the quarter-panels, leaving the car’s black hood noticeably blank.
Unfortunately, driver and team struggled from the start. In opening practice, Hill’s was the slowest car overall with a best of 32.525 seconds (151.194mph), 2.6 seconds off the fastest lap set by Erik Jones and matched by Riley Herbst, and 1.695 off the next-slowest car of Ryan Blaney. Hill’s was the first car on track for qualifying, where he again anchored the speed charts, this time with a time of 32.044 seconds (153.4646mph), still 2.972 seconds off Tyler Reddick’s pole and 1.460 off the next-slowest car of Ty Dillon.
On Sunday, the only driver who incurred a tail-end penalty was Carson Hocevar, whose crew had to replace an upper control arm in the right-front, surrendering the 16th starting spot for his #77 Chili’s Marg Machine Chevrolet, painted blue-and-gold to resemble one of Dale Earnhardt’s first #3 cars from 1981. For the start, Hill remained in the 37th spot, letting Hocevar pull up to lead the outside line with 35th-place qualifier Cole Custer to Hocevar’s inside in the #41 HaasTooling.com Chevrolet.
When the green flag dropped, Hill was last across the line, 3.477 seconds back of the lead to Custer’s 3.167 and Hocevar’s 3.131. Hill came up through the gears soon enough, but by Turn 1 had already lost ground to the field, leaving him behind by open track by the exit of Turn 2. By the end of Lap 1, Hill had already fallen 6.033 seconds back of the lead, a full 1.6 seconds behind 36th-place Hocevar. From there, the gap only grew. On Lap 3, when Shane van Gisbergen fell to 36th in the #97 WeatherTech Chevrolet, Hill had fallen 2.568 seconds behind him, then 3.671 on Lap 4, and 5.963 on Lap 7, when Ty Dillon was shaken out to 36th in the #10 Grizzly Nicotine Pouches Chevrolet. By then, Hill had fallen 19.034 seconds back of the lead, already in danger of losing a lap.
On Lap 11, Hill radioed his team that the car was “tight center, free on exit,” and was bottoming out hard on the bumps, especially at the entrances of Turns 1 and 3. He was noticeably off-throttle for long periods of time in the corners, costing him even more time to the leaders. So much time, in fact, that on Lap 14, race leader Tyler Reddick zipped past to his outside in Turn 1. Back on pit road, Carl Long called for two rounds down on the next pit stop to get the rear of the car angled upward. By Lap 21, the now 32nd-place Van Gisbergen passed Hill down the backstretch. On Lap 23, Long asked Hill if he needed to pit early, but the spotter said he didn’t think so, relaying that the car had “a wiggle in and a wiggle off.” On Lap 24, Hill lot a second lap on pace as Reddick moved past off Turn 4 coming to the line. Then on Lap 30, Hill lost the free pass position as 36th-place Ty Dillon went down his first lap on track.
On Lap 32, just as Erik Jones passed him down the backstretch, Hill pulled to the inside and prepared to come down pit road. Long and crew completed their stop on Lap 34, sending Hill back out now four laps down in last place. This was still several laps before the leaders made their own first green-flag stops. Among the earliest to come in was Justin Allgaier, who pitted Alex Bowan’s #48 Ally Chevrolet on Lap 37, dropping him to 36th. On Lap 41, Hill reported the adjustments helped, saying the car was still hitting the bumps but not as hard. On Lap 48, after Cody Ware pitted his #51 Jacob Industries Chevrolet, he’d fallen four laps down, putting him in 35th on the same lap as Hill and into last place. Back on track, Ware reported “I’ve got a vibration, something’s wrong with the right-front.” He then reported he was “plowing tight on the entry of the corner.”
Hill pulls onto the pits, headed to the garage. (PHOTO: Matt Miller, @MGMiller17)
But on Lap 52, Hill came down pit road a second time, then pulled behind the wall at the opening between Stalls 20 and 21 at the starting line. Hill also reported an issue in the front end, so the crew raised the hood and worked around the right-front suspension. Long called for a set of sticker tires and a jack, and had the crew pull a packer out of the right-front. The crew also pulled off the left-rear wheel on Lap 60. On Lap 64, the crew dropped the hood and sent Hill back on the track through the exit between Pit Stalls 7 and 8 on the Turn 1 side. By then, Hill was 18 laps down. Just five laps later, Long told Hill to bring the car to the garage if it was still a handful. Hill said he was still feeling it out. But on Lap 70, Hill slowed down the backstretch again and pulled back behind the wall. Long told the crew to start cleaning up, but to let the sponsors hang out at the pit box a little longer. And on Lap 74, NASCAR declared Hill the first car out of the race. The on-board camera was shut off on Lap 81. Well after falling out, FS1 and NASCAR.com’s leaderboards both showed Hill’s last completed lap at 55.49 seconds.
One week after everyone finished on track within five laps of the leader in Las Vegas, Hill was the race’s only DNF. Cody Ware endured damaged right-front suspension and searing heat in the cockpit to finish 36th, eight laps down to race winner Tyler Reddick whose teammates, Bubba Wallace in the #23 Columbia Toyota and Riley Herbst in the #35 Monster Energy Toyota, ended up 34th and 35th after separate incidents that drew the only two non-stage cautions. Wallace was collected in a three-car incident on Lap 111 after Denny Hamlin bumped Erik Jones into a spin in Turn 3 while Herbst was spun by Connor Zilisch off Turn 4 on Lap 197. Joey Logano qualified 29th and never recovered after he lost his first lap on pace on Lap 34. He finished three laps down in 33rd, rounding out the Bottom Five.
Spire shines in Darlington, Buescher and Jones overcome significant incidents
The last 91-lap green-flag run that rounded out Sunday’s race saw two of the three members of Spire Motorsports turn in strong runs. After his tail-end penalty, Carson Hocevar charged to a 4th-place finish in the final laps, three spots ahead of teammate Daniel Suarez in the #7 Nations Guard Chevrolet. For Hocevar, it was his second top Five of the season, matching his 4th from Atlanta. Suarez came just two spots short of matching his own season-best performance from Atlanta, where he earned a 5th.
Following issues for frontrunners Kyle Larson and Chase Briscoe in the final laps, Chris Buescher managed to finish 9th in the #17 Fifth Third Bank Ford despite a late-race tangle with eventual race winner Tyler Reddick that caused Buescher to slam the Turn 3 wall with the right-rear of his Ford. Behind him in 10th came Erik Jones, who overcame his spin in the same incident that collected Bubba Wallace, earning a Top Ten of his own in Legacy Motor Club’s “throwback” to Wally Dallenbach, Jr.’s #43 STP Toyota from 1994 – the last-place finisher of this very race in ’94.
LASTCAR STATISTICS
*Hill is the fourth different driver to finish last in a Cup race at Darlington while driving the #66. The others were Lake Speed (April 7, 1991), Darrell Waltrip (March 19, 2000), and Michael McDowell (May 7, 2011). All three were at the track on Sunday with Speed performing the Invocation, Waltrip joining the broadcast for FS1, and McDowell competing in the race itself, taking 20th in the third Spire entry.
*Darrell Waltrip was also the most recent driver to finish last at Darlington due to handling issues, which sidelined his #66 Big K Mart / Route 66 Ford after 116 laps on March 19, 2000. The last Cup driver to finish last with handling issues at any track was B.J. McLeod, who fell out after 132 laps at Martinsville on April 9, 2022.
THE BOTTOM FIVE
37) #66-Timmy Hill / 52 laps / handling
36) #51-Cody Ware / 285 laps / running
35) #35-Riley Herbst / 288 laps / running
34) #23-Bubba Wallace / 288 laps / running
33) #22-Joey Logano / 290 laps / running
2026 LASTCAR CUP SERIES OWNER’S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Joe Gibbs Racing (2)
2nd) Garage 66, Live Fast Motorsports, Trackhouse Racing, Wood Brothers Racing (1)
2026 LASTCAR CUP SERIES MANUFACTURER’S CHAMPIONSHIP
1st) Chevrolet, Ford, Toyota (2)
2026 LASTCAR CUP SERIES DRIVER’S CHAMPIONSHIP
