Where is ... B. Hillin Jr.?

Bobby Hillin Jr. was the original young gun.

There was only one small problem. He was a young gun before young guns were cool.

Hillin ran his first Winston Cup race at the ripe old age of 17, when he had not yet graduated from high school. He showed sure signs of talent, but acceptance came slowly, if ever. Many saw his successes as a fluke and his failures as a sure sign that he'd gotten into the sport too soon.

Bobby Hillin Jr.

Were the assessments fair? Probably not, especially considering the Cup Series' current trend toward discovering young and raw talent. Today, Hillin would most likely be a prime candidate for some team's development program. Instead, he's back in Texas, on the outside looking in.

Hillin now lives in Houston. After leaving the sport at the end of the 2000 season, Hillin formed T-Rex Services, a Houston-based company specializing in hydro and air vacuum excavation, industrial vacuum services and emergency response.

"We have an industrial service construction company," Hillin said. "We do small civil construction jobs -- mainly underground concrete work, building vaults, doing repairs. In terms of hydro-excavation, we've got these large trucks that actually use high-pressure water and vacuum to non-destructively excavate in and around underground utilities, to keep from damaging them.

"We do everything from locating them to actually working with other companies and doing the excavations for construction ... piling holes, foundations of all kinds. We actually even tunnel underneath houses and buildings for repairs that need to be made underneath slabs. We also do some emergency response work with our high-flow vacuum trucks. We do some industrial tank cleaning, anything related to using these big, high-powered air movers."

Hillin had not yet turned 18 when he made his Cup debut in April 1982 at North Wilkesboro. He started 29th out of 30 cars and finished 21st. His car was owned by his father, Bobby Sr., and sponsored by the family company, Hillin Drilling. He would eventually land the legendary Harry Hyde as his crew chief.

Still, there were whispers in more than one corner of the garage that Hillin hadn't paid his dues. When Hillin broke into the sport, help from others in the garage was scarce.

"I think it was a lot harder then than it is now, because now that's the age that everybody's looking for," Hillin said. "Back then, it was unheard of. It was a little bit tougher back then, I think. Most of the drivers in their prime were in their mid-30s, and there were a handful of drivers in their 20s."

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."