Gilliland Keeps Learning; Nabs Season Best At Indy

Todd Gilliland (Nigel Kinrade photo)

INDIANAPOLIS - Todd Gilliland took home a season-best sixth-place finish in Sunday’s Brickyard 400 presented by PPG, his second top 10 in the last three weeks.

It marked the continuation of a year of growth for Gilliland, who is poised to become the lead NASCAR Cup Series driver at Front Row Motorsports next year with the looming departure of veteran Michael McDowell.

Through 22 races, Gilliland has already set new personal bests in top 10s (four) and laps led (121), and is tracking toward the best average starting (22.6) and finishing (19.0) positions of his young career as well.

Sunday, the third-generation driver lurked in the top 10 for a good portion of the day, taking the lead briefly on lap 73 during a green-flag pit cycle and finding himself able to advance forward late as others around him had to save fuel.

“I think our Mustang was really competitive. We were a little tight on [corner] exit the whole race, but that is part of it,” said Gililland. “Our car had good speed when we stayed [up front] there. It was an interesting race. It was hard to [make] passes.”

Notably, Indianapolis has been the site of Gilliland’s best moments to-date in his young Cup Series career, as his career-best mark of fourth came in 2022 on the IMS road course during his rookie campaign.

Two years removed from that day and on a different configuration, the 24-year-old experienced ups and downs throughout the weekend, qualifying 24th and finishing 18th in Friday’s practice session.

Though he finished 28th and 29th in the first two stages, the No. 38 Ford team stayed in the fight.

“We didn’t do [well] on the strategy for the middle part of the race … but then it put us in a position where it worked out for us at the end,” Gilliland noted.

Gilliland recorded his fourth top 10 of the season and third since Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway in June. He also jumped to 20th in the playoff standings, 118 points back of the cut line with four races remaining in the regular season.

While he’ll almost certainly need a win to qualify for the playoffs, days like Sunday prove that Gilliland is inching closer and closer to breaking into Cup Series victory lane.

“[It’s] just disappointing a little bit. I was fourth on the last restart and probably should have chosen the bottom, looking back on it, but that is how it goes sometimes. You live and you learn,” he lamented.

Entering the next four races, the good news for Gilliland is that he has some tracks on the way that are in his favor.

He qualified sixth at Richmond in April, as Front Row Motorsports has continued to improve their short track program. Gilliland has two 12th-place finishes in the Cup Series’ last two short track races (Iowa & New Hampshire).

Gilliland is a strong superspeedway racer, finishing eighth at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway as a prelude to the 400-miler at Daytona (Fla.) Int’l Speedway in August, and had a solid top-15 run at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway in May.

That stretch could just give Gilliland and crew chief Ryan Bergenty opportunities to roll the dice and play for a trophy in the closing weeks of the regular season.

After taking two weeks off for the Paris Olympics, the NASCAR Cup Series field will return to action at the three-quarter-mile Richmond (Va.) Raceway, where Denny Hamlin won in the spring.

Broadcast coverage of the Cook Out 400 begins at 6 p.m. ET on USA, the Motor Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.