BRISTOL, Tenn. — During NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series Playoff Media Day on Monday, Todd Gilliland’s name was widely thrown around as an underdog contender for the championship.
In fact, six of the nine other drivers in the 10-man playoff field circled Gilliland and the No. 38 Front Row Motorsports Ford F-150 team as a squad that could surprise people over the next seven races.
When Gilliland learned what his competition had said, he smiled and nodded in agreement.
Not only is the underdog role something that the third-generation driver relishes, it’s one he’s hoping can carry him through the Truck Series playoffs and give him a chance to fight for the title when the season finale rolls around at Arizona’s Phoenix Raceway on Nov. 6.
“Don’t get me wrong, if we had won six races to this point and everyone was looking at us (as a favorite), I’d love that too, but we do come in under the radar a bit,” Gilliland told SPEED SPORT. “I think there is still a lot of pressure when it comes to being in the playoffs, no matter who you are, but some of the guys that are leading or are up in championship points … I think it can be a little easier to take yourself out of it, because you’re under a lot of pressure in that situation.
“Our guys can relax and just go to the race track to have fun and do our best every week, and I like that position,” he added. “Obviously, we want to win and go rounds, but we hope to enjoy this as much as we can also.”
Gilliland thrived during the regular season this year, after a move from Kyle Busch Motorsports during the offseason to a new Front Row Motorsports Truck Series program supported by DGR-Crosley – the team his father, David Gilliland, co-owns alongside Crosley Group’s Bo LeMastus.
Though he hasn’t landed in victory lane, Gilliland has shown top-five speed in multiple races and earned nine top-10 finishes in the first 16 races of the Truck Series season.
That consistency was enough to put Gilliland into the playoffs for the first time in three full-time seasons, while the KBM No. 4 team that he left — led this year by rookie Raphael Lessard — missed the postseason for the third year running.
Gilliland said his struggles over the past two years made this year’s postseason berth “very rewarding.”
“It’s made me appreciate (being in the playoffs) a lot more. I’ve said this a couple of times to people, but the last two years, I personally expected to make the playoffs and I was expected to make the playoffs … so finally being able to do it and seeing the excitement of my team has been super satisfying for me,” Gilliland noted. “This whole few days of knowing that we’re a part of something that only 10 drivers are this year definitely makes me appreciate it a lot more than maybe I would have otherwise.”
With people starting to realize that Gilliland could be a threat to contend for the title, the 20-year-old said his team has to tighten up its performances and execute in order to back up those beliefs.
“I think people have noticed the speed we’ve had; we’ve been getting better and better, but we still aren’t where we want to be week in and week out,” he said. “We’ve kind of been hit and miss, but there have some weeks that we’ve been right there. At Gateway, we were the dominant truck, I’d say. It’s hard to be that dominant in one of these races nowadays. I think if we can find that type of speed — and we’ve had glimmers of that every once in a while —we can be one of those top guys. We just need to do that more consistently.
“That’s in the details of the truck, the setup and the notes that we’re building, and I feel like we’re getting better and better with that every week still.”
With that progression in mind, Gilliland said he hopes his team’s label will evolve throughout the playoffs and morph from “dark horse” to “title contender.”
“Personally, I feel like we’ve made so many gains through the second half of the season to this point, and I feel like we’ve been contenders week in and week out,” he explained. “Our bad days were probably in the back half of the top 10, and for that to be your bad days, I feel like that’s pretty good. Obviously, you see the guys that are leading the regular season points, and those guys are still in the top five on their bad days, so we still have work to do. But we’ve made a lot of gains.
“I’m just really confident with the direction we’re going and I feel like we’re still getting better,” Gilliland noted. “I think that’s a good thing to have going into the playoffs and hopefully we can capitalize.”
The NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series playoffs commence Thursday night at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway.