Quin Walton Houff (born September 15, 1997) is an American professional stock car racing driver.
Racing career
Early years
Houff started to race when he was eight, driving go-karts. A year later, he upgraded to Mini-Cup cars and by age thirteen, he was racing Limited Late Model cars at local tracks. During his formative years, Houff often competed at legendary short track South Boston Speedway.[1]
Late models
Houff ran the entire 2015 CARS Super Late Model Series schedule at age seventeen. He won one race, in Hudson, North Carolina, recorded four more top fives and finished fourth in points.[2] On the strength of that season, Houff was named to the 2016 Kulwicki Driver Development program.[3] He won the 2016 CARS season opener, but ran only the first seven races,[4] a move he made after consulting with a strategy team.[5] He also ran the 2016 All American 400 for David Gilliland.[6] Houff returned to the series on a limited basis in 2017.[7] After not racing since the 2021 Cup Series Finale at Phoenix, Houff will attempt to run South Boston Speedway's Crown Jewel race and the first race of the Virginia Triple Crown, the Thunder Road Harley-Davidson 200.
On March 21, 2017, it was announced that Houff would drive two NASCARXfinity Series races for Precision Performance Motorsports, at Bristol Motor Speedway and Richmond International Raceway.[13] He tested for the races at Motor Mile Speedway.[14] At Bristol, Houff hovered around the top ten most of the day after a strong qualifying run but damage due to an incident with Ross Chastain dropped him to fifteenth.[15] After the race at Richmond, Houff signed on for two more races with the team, at Iowa Speedway and Kentucky Speedway.[16] He took advantage of good pit strategy at Iowa to score a career-best twelfth but spun during his qualifying lap at Kentucky and failed to qualify. He made starts at Kentucky and Kansas, finishing in the mid-20s.[17] He failed to qualify for his final scheduled start of the year, at Homestead.[18]
Houff was left without a ride as PPM shuttered its team at the end of the 2017 season.[19]
On September 7, 2018, it was announced that Houff would make his 2018 Xfinity debut with JD Motorsports' No. 4 entry at Richmond.[20] After finishing 31st in a one-off for the team, a deal came together on October 18, 2018 for Houff to run the final four races of the Xfinity Series season in the organization's No. 15 entry. The deal was made quickly, with Houff finalizing the deal and traveling to Kansas Speedway for the first race of the agreement on the same day.[21]
On November 27, 2019, StarCom Racing announced that Houff would drive the team's No. 00 on a full-time basis during the 2020 and 2021 seasons.[24]
At the 2020 O'Reilly Auto Parts 500 at Texas, Houff made a last-minute decision to enter pit-road with 29 laps to go, clipping the cars of Christopher Bell and Matt DiBenedetto in the process before crashing into the outside retaining wall. He was later on criticized by DiBenedetto and Brad Keselowski, who proposed that NASCAR should add a relegation structure that would demote developmental drivers to the lower divisions should they commit a mistake similar to Houff's.[25] Later that season, in the 2020 Yellawood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, he finished a career high 13th place after avoiding multiple accidents on the ending laps.
In 2021, Talladega would again be Houff's strong suit, as he scored a season-high 19th place finish in the 2021 YellaWood 500. StarCom Racing would shut down at the end of 2021, leaving Houff without a ride.
(key) (Bold – Pole position awarded by qualifying time. Italics – Pole position earned by points standings or practice time. * – Most laps led. ** – All laps led.)
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