Arguably one of the No. 4 team’s strongest performances of the early season was at Daytona in February, when David Gilliland earned the pole, a stage win and was in contention for the overall race victory in the final laps, until contact with the wall took him out of the mix with seven laps to go.
That was a race where Todd Gilliland was watching from the pit box, a moment where he soaked in the meaning of his father driving the truck he’ll now step into at Martinsville.
“It was really cool to see my dad be in a really competitive ride again and be able to run up front like he did, because people have recognized that he’s always done really well in the restrictor plate races and he’s proven that for a long time,” said Todd Gilliland. “He was able to get the pole and came within a few laps of winning the race, too, so to see all that play out the way it did was super special for me, without a doubt.”
Saturday’s race will mark the first of six events that the younger Gilliland will carry branding from Mobil 1 on the side of his Toyota Tundra, but it will also see the teenager return to the track where he scored a top-five finish in October.
On that day, Gilliland’s KBM teammate Noah Gragson raced to the win and took home a grandfather clock trophy, and Gilliland hopes that he’s learned enough in his limited time in the Truck Series to replicate Gragson’s feat on Saturday afternoon.
“It’s going to be tough to win at Martinsville, but we’re going to give it all we’ve got,” said Gilliland. “The race is all about restarts and track position, so having a fast truck and being able to qualify up front and hopefully controlling the race. Last year in the fall, we were kind of just stuck in the middle of the pack, but were able to capitalize and make our Tundra a lot better to keep track position. I’d like to be able to control the race a little bit better this time.”
“Knowing that Marcus Richmond and my team won that race in the fall with Noah … that gives me confidence that we’ll have a truck capable of contending at the front of the field. I think it’s going to be a great relationship and I think that past history will allow us to have a strong start to the weekend.”
But while stepping into a KBM entry automatically means expectations are high, Gilliland boiled his personal goals down to a simple philosophy.
“We’re just going to go out and do our best every weekend,” he explained. “I know that there’s going to be a learning curve on some of the tracks I haven’t been to yet, but I know that I have people around me that will help to shorten that curve as much as they can.”
“The hope is that we can accumulate some wins before the end of the season, and we’ll just see how everything else shakes out from there. I’m excited. I’m ready to roll.”
