Where is ... B. Hillin Jr.? (cont'd)

Strangely enough, a 1986 win at Talladega did little to help matters. Help and encouragement was still scarce, to a certain degree. At the same time, however, he was just 22 and thought he knew everything there was to know about the sport.

He didn't.

"When I won Talladega, it all changed," Hillin said. "I was pretty young then, and at that point, nobody wanted to help me. The reality of it is I was 22 years old with not a whole lot of experience. I still needed a whole lot of help. Part of it was they didn't want to help me and part of it was my pride. I thought I didn't need any more help. Between the combination of those two things, it was pretty deathly for me."

Hillin formed a Busch Series team, and had at one point, an ownership group that included several Major League Baseball players. It was a group that included, for a time, slugger Mark McGwire. He ran one last Cup race in 2000, for owner Mark Melling, and a handful of Busch Series events that same year.

Not long afterward, Hillin was back in Texas, his NASCAR career over.

"At the time we made the decision, it wasn't that hard," Hillin said. "I just felt like that was the way we were being led to go."

Hillin is comfortable with his NASCAR career ... sort of.

"From a racing standpoint, I was very, very unsatisfied," he admitted. "Gosh ... was there more on the table? Of course, there's no doubt about it. I proved early on I had talent and for a host of reasons, obviously never developed it. It never let it mature. It only built into frustration that over the years probably even hindered my talent. I'm not satisfied at all.

"Am I at peace with it? Yes. I did end up managing to have 18 years in the sport. I made my living at it for 18 years. I made a decent living and met a lot of really neat people, met a lot of friends, built a lot of friendships. From that standpoint, it was fulfilling. It taught me a lot of lessons that I'm able to move on with in life today."