It’s been nearly four years since Hattori Racing Enterprises competed at the NASCAR Xfinity Series level, but the 2018 NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series Champions appear to be lining up an effort to run at least one race in the series in 2019.
In a multi-day event named “Supra Returns to Japan Fes”, which was held in Japan a couple of weeks ago, Hattori Racing Enterprises — which currently fields the No. 16 Toyota Tundra in the NGOTS — apparently announced their intentions to run the upcoming July NASCAR Xfinity Series Race at Daytona International Speedway.
Here is a translated excerpt from team owner Shigeaki Hattori’s talk at the event, this translation comes from deadbar.com.
There are also Press Releases that have surfaced about the team, which won the 2018 NASCAR Truck Series championship, running a NASCAR Xfinity Series Race, despite no formal announcement being made in America just yet.
According to the images in the press releases, the team will run a No. 61 Toyota Supra sponsored by AISIN Group.
No word on a driver, but their NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series driver Austin Hill won the season-opening Truck Series event at Daytona.
This first press release is available on the vertex sports website.
At the top of the main page of the website where the press release can be found is the tag line: “Hattori Racing Enterprises NASCAR Xfinity???? (translates to Series) DAYTONA???? (translates to participate in battle)!”
When you click the tagline, it takes you directly to the pdf of the press release.
This press release has also been floating around online. Apparently, these are the ones that were handed out at the actual event in Japan.
As you can see it’s nearly identical to the first press release except a photo of Daytona International Speedway can clearly be seen on the bottom half of the page.
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