Pit Pass Radio

I have to applaud David Gilliland and the whole FreeCreditReport.com race team for Yates Racing. Starting 31st, the Cully Barraclough led team used great pit strategy and a good racecar to notch David Gilliland’s career best finish, a 2nd, in the Toyota/Save Mart 350.

“Our strategy was pretty good,” Gilliland explained. “We’ve done a lot of road course testing to try and get our fuel mileage the best we can, and you know, the cautions fell right for us today, too. It put us in a position to be able to run in the top six or seven there, and we were able to stay up there. Our car was good enough to stay up there, which is good. “When you’re back in the back, there’s a lot more stuff that happens and you take more chances coming up through there,” Gilliland went on to say. “Our fuel mileage was good. I was conserving fuel up until we had those last couple cautions and my crew chief just said go ahead and go and give it all you’ve got.”

The 38 team was able to stretch the last two runs to 43 laps each to retain their track position and grab a runner up finish to Kyle Busch. Winning at Infineon is nothing new for Gilly, as he has been racing here for many years in the West Series. He also served as the crew chief for his dad, Butch, as they won races here, close to his hometown of Riverside, California. David survived a few late cautions (during which Cully was telling him to “Save, save save!”, fuel that is). On the final restart, Gilliland held off multiple Sonoma winner Jeff Gordon to claim the 2nd spot. Gordon was impressed with Gilliland’s run:

“I wasn’t around him enough to know what he did most of the race, but there at the end he was definitely impressive,” Gordon said. “He was good on the restarts. He would get in there, and I thought he was going to have something for Kyle there at the end. I think actually if all the speedy-dry hadn’t been on the racetrack, he might have.”

Fans of Yates Racing are hoping that the team will be able to build on the momentum of this terrific run and have a great 2nd half of the season. Travis Kvapil in the Yates number 28 had a decent run, starting 41st and finishing 22nd. Both teams have had really good performance at times this season, and need to continue the success as they continue to court full-time sponsors for both cars.