CONCORD, N.C. — After a difficult start to the NASCAR Cup Series season, Todd Gilliland collected his first top-10 finish of the season Sunday at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway.
Gilliland’s sixth-place run in the No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford Mustang came in the eighth race of the season.
“We were talking with our team owner and everyone about how it was a much-needed good run,” Gilliland said. “One good run can really help carry momentum for quite a while, so we feel good about these next few races coming up. Honestly, Bristol has never been my best track, so to get out of there with a top 10 and, honestly, just to run really competitively the second half of that race felt really good.
“I think we’re all on the same page and pulling the rope in the same direction and really excited for these next few races.”
Still, it wasn’t a smooth run for Gilliland, who battled back from being involved in a crash.
“To be honest with you, it definitely felt like ‘here we go again.’ You don’t ever want to feel like that, but starting out the race as poorly as we did, getting down a lap within 30 laps it felt like, getting the wave around, getting the lucky dog,” Gilliland said. “Just before we got in that wreck, I gained a lot of spots. I feel like we were just making some good speed on the top lane and then we get in a wreck and you never really know.
“That’s the hard part. It gives you five minutes of that caution period to kind of feel everything out, but you’re not always 100 percent sure if things are good or bad. We went to the back again and just kind of rallied from there. It all went super smooth from that point on, but things happen extremely fast at Bristol, too.”
It was a difficult start to the season for the third-generation stock car racer.
“Getting through Daytona and Atlanta I think I wrecked five times in those two races, and you know that can happen going into those two races and we were literally last in points after those,” Gilliland said. “Obviously, we could have had great weeks and been on the top coming out of those, so I think that was just a tough place to start. It kind of beats you down for the first few races, but, to be honest, we really haven’t had great speed.
“Even going to a place like Martinsville, where I feel that’s more so where we should run inside the top 10 than a place like Bristol, and we just ran in the back half of the twenties all day. So, I don’t know. Our speed just really hasn’t been there,” Gilliland noted. “My team and everyone is working super hard. We’ve seen speed from teammates at times, so we’re trying to get all of those things together. This is an always moving target, especially with this new downforce and horsepower package.
“We got to a point where we have a lot of notes and you still can go off those notes to some extent, but, at the same time, things are a little bit different. I think we’re just barely missing it with these new targets we’re shooting for and with how tight the fields are now, it hasn’t been equating to great speed.”
Kansas Speedway, a 1.5-mile oval is next on the schedule.
“My expectations are the same as what you just said, great racing, crazy restarts,” Gilliland said. “I think that’s the biggest thing that we’re always focused on is qualifying well to get some good track position for the first stage, and set yourself up well for the race, and then just good restarts. The rest of it is you want to have good pit stops, gain yourself spots and just parlay that all day into gaining spots.
“As a driver and what I can control, restarts are definitely big,” he added. “There are so many options. Even sometimes if you go to the bottom, it’s a short-term gain, but once you get to the backstretch five cars pass you, so it’s about thinking further ahead. It’s hard to do sometimes, but at least have a plan going in and trying to execute that plan.”
