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On this day, weeks before the season-opening Daytona 500, Bobby Hillin Jr. can't sit down. There are plenty of comfortable chairs throughout the lobby of his hotel, yet he seems oblivious to them.
Anxious isn't the word.
"I can't describe how bad I want to run up front," he said. "Words just can't describe it. I'm foaming at the mouth."
It was an unexpected - and nearly tragic - turn of events last season that has Hillin so hyper as he prepares for his first season with Heilig-Meyers Racing, starting with today's Twin 125-mile qualifying races at Daytona International Speedway.
Driving as many races last season as the financially-strapped Team Ireland Racing could afford, Hillin was destined to reach the unemployment line long before any checkered flag. The team, owned by Martin Birrane, ran in only six of the season's first 14 events; its best finish was 13th.
Things were going so badly Hillin refused to drive the team's speedway car at Talladega in July because it was in such poor shape.
Things weren't going so good for Davey Allison, either. The week before Talladega he crashed at Pocono - which left him with fractured wrists and arms, and...