Top Dog: Todd Gilliland
Todd Gilliland has had a solid rookie year, but 21 races in, it’s not always easy to see with a look at his season-long results. Despite some strong runs, Gilliland has often been a victim of circumstances that prohibited him from earning a top 10 with Front Row Motorsports.
Not anymore. At the Verizon 200 held at historic Indianapolis Motor Speedway (July 31), Gilliland not only earned his first career top 10 at the top level; he earned a fourth-place finish, just the second top five overall for FRM this year.
Gilliland’s career-best weekend started and ended with milestones. He earned his best starting position with a stout ninth-place qualifying run, but that was only the beginning.
One of the most intriguing aspects of road course racing is strategy, which has been twisted around a bit during the stage racing era. At Indy, there seemed to be three groups of drivers with varying ideas of when and how to pit. Gilliland and the No. 38 team opted to stay out at the end of stage one, earning him five stage points with a sixth-place finish.
That forced Gilliland to start deep in the field for stage two, which resulted in him running 26th at the stage two break. But as strategy worked its way through, the No. 38 Ford was climbing the pylon.
Through the first two stages, several drivers looked as if they were performing Monster Jam donuts, as driver after driver took 360-degree spins. However, the only yellows were for stage breaks as drivers were able to recover from their crashes. When the first yellow for cause fell with just over 20 laps remaining, Gilliland was scored in the 18th position.
On the restart, the 22-year-old rookie drove up inside the top 10 with 17 laps to go, improving to ninth when a caution was displayed for debris from Christopher Bell’s car with five laps left.
That is where the firestorm on the track began to hit.
The second-to-last restart looked more like a demolition derby than a NASCAR race. Driver piled into driver, and Gilliland was no exception. He radioed in to the team that he felt like he “got hit on all four corners on that restart.” However, the car was able to withstand the impact.
Gilliland lined up in eighth for the final restart. A spin from Ryan Blaney ignited several small incidents, and when the dust settled, Gilliland had emerged in fifth. That is where he crossed the line, but a penalty for Ross Chastain taking the access road in turn 1 moved him into the fourth spot.
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