Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Atlanta 2 Advance| Wednesday, July 5, 2023
Todd Gilliland, driver of the No. 38 Georgia Peanuts Ford Mustang for Front Row Motorsports this weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway, has posted three top-10 finishes so far this season. He spoke with members of the media about last week’s street course event in Chicago and how racing at AMS this weekend will be different from in the spring.
TODD GILLILAND, No. 38 Georgia Peanuts Ford Mustang – DO YOU FEEL ATLANTA IS CONSTANTLY EVOLVING? “I think what you said is true. Atlanta is still probably a moving target for everybody in general. I think even the difference between the two races that we run at Atlanta. Going forward I feel like it’s something that we see at a place like Vegas, racing in the really cold and then it’s usually hot when we go back. It’s usually the same thing here. You would think that the setup would be a little bit different and still probably evolving in a better way from the beginning of the year until now. I think, hopefully, our cars drive good. I think that’s the biggest thing as a driver at Atlanta. It’s not as much a superspeedway as one would think and at least from my eyes I think handling still real important there.”
WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THE TURN 3 PIT ENTRY LAST TIME THERE AND WILL YOU BE USED TO IT THIS TIME AROUND? “Yeah, I think everything kind of went fairly smooth with that pit road. It was unexpected and something I had never even thought of being an issue without the turn three entry, but the NASCAR guys were definitely worried about it from the first time we went there. I think the only thing that’s kind of weird is that you’re coming off pit road off turn two right exactly where guys are trying to get off the racetrack, so you just have to pay a little bit of extra attention there and coordinate with guys. It’s kind of the same thing on pit road when guys are coming out of their stall versus going in, so just faster speed. That’s the biggest issue I could see having, but everything went smooth the first time and I definitely expect more of the same this time around.”
DO YOU ENVISION ANOTHER RACE WITH A 44 LAP GREEN FLAG RUN TO THE FINISH LIKE LAST TIME? “I don’t know. As a younger driver I would always venture to say that there’s gonna be a caution and wrecks and green-white-checkereds to finish the race in the Cup Series. We’ve even seen recently at the superspeedways like Daytona and Talladega where we have relatively greenish finishes to the end, I don’t know. I think Atlanta is a place where you could get pretty out of shape. There’s give and take, but at the same time it’s really easy to have an issue and turn someone around. I would say there will probably be less green flag runs to the end this year.”
WHAT IS YOUR TAKEAWAY FROM CHICAGO LAST WEEKEND? “I think overall I was just extremely impressed with the run of the show. Honestly, I think NASCAR had all of their ducks in a row and it was honestly just super impressive with their preparation on the NASCAR side. We were staying at the Chicago Athletic Association, which is one block away. We walked into the garage. Obviously, it was a similar walk to what we do sometimes at a normal racetrack from the parking lot. I was worried about our haulers being far and it was no further than a normal garage area, and then the rain is something that we can’t control. How many people stuck around for the race on Sunday blew my mind. I thought there was gonna be no one left for the race with how much rain we had and in my eyes it just means how big of an event it was going to be. With all of the concerts and blue skies I think it would have been huge, and then the on track, I think there is definitely a lot to be learned. I think setup-wise all of the drivers were constantly learning out there. I feel like my team did a good job preparing and we were ready when we hit the track, but there’s always going to be a constant evolution of setups, drivers understanding of it all, but I think the course layout was fun and I think the whole thing went relatively smooth.”
IS ATLANTA ANYTHING LIKE DAYTONA OR TALLADEGA? HOW DO YOU VIEW IT? “I’ve been trying to push to my crew chief that it’s not like Daytona and Talladega. To me, I guess you are wide-open. It’s just the hybrid. It’s something new that we’re all trying to understand every time we go back there, but there’s just so much more handling involved. Even at Daytona there are some times, I mean you can feel out of control but stay relatively wide-open and have good speed no matter what, where here if your handling is off, you’re not gonna have the speed. You’re not gonna have the comfortability to drive up front and do what you need to do at all, so, to me, it’s so much more important to have a good driving car. I think almost even in my mind at least, which I don’t know anything about what we’re doing this weekend, but even just a normal mile-and-a-half car, to me, seems like it would just be good at Atlanta – just as much throttle-on time as you can and you’ll have the ability to make moves. I think that’s the biggest thing I’m trying to push.”
HOW MUCH OF A WILDCARD WEEKEND IS THIS OR NOT? “I still think in the early stages of Atlanta that there is still probably opportunity there, but it’s about making good decisions. I think what I’m trying to say and trying to push of – we’re not gonna have a faster car just based on drag and downforce than a Hendrick car when they show up to Daytona and get the pole, something like that. So, what can we do? We can make our car drive better. Have good pit strategy that puts us up front and once you’re up front you just have to have the confidence to be able to make moves and stay up there. We’ve seen Corey LaJoie do really well here at Atlanta and I think that’s a good benchmark that we can have a surprise winner, but it’s really tough when you get in that spot to have everything in line to make it all happen on that one day.”
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT YOUR SEASON SO FAR? “I feel like we definitely had a really good stretch there for a little bit. We got off to a bad start and then went on a good run there for a little bit, and then recently we’ve just kind of been down on speed and not our best performances. It definitely would be nice to get back to consistently being in the top 20 and then hopefully get some top 10s there like we were doing for a while, and it didn’t seem too hard at the time. I know we can get back there, it’s just about constantly developing and getting better. I think in the Cup Series that’s something I’ve learned is you can never just be happy with where you are at and I think we can definitely get back to where we were. Overall, it’s a much better season than last year and I still think that our ceiling is much higher this year.”
DID YOU GET TO GO OUT AND DO ANYTHING IN CHICAGO? “We kind of stayed close to the hotel, but it’s just really fun to walk around the city and see so much life, so many cool restaurants. I always joke and say that I could definitely live in the city. That’s what I love is walking around. The weather was nice for the beginning part of the trip and just seeing how much fun everyone was having down there. We went down to a rooftop restaurant and got some Chicago pizza – all the good stuff right around there – and, honestly, all within a couple blocks of where we were staying. It’s really cool and just a little bit different than what we normally do.”
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE ROAD COURSES LEFT THIS SEASON? “I’m excited about the upcoming road courses. I think that’s definitely our stronger suit when we go to the racetrack here at Front Row and I give a lot of that credit to Michael McDowell. I think he just has us in a good spot as far as setup-wise – braking, just having the fundamental things right when we go to a road course is honestly really huge, so I think he does a really good job with that as far as getting our simulator right and all the tools right. That way we can prepare as good as possible when we get to the racetrack is another thing. I think Ford does a really good job about that and I think all of the upcoming road courses can be really strong with us. It’s funny, I never really grew up road course racing, but just always really enjoyed them since I started doing them.”
WHAT DID YOU THINK ABOUT THE SINGLE-FILE RESTARTS AND SHOULD IT BE CONSIDERED FOR OTHER ROAD COURSES AS WELL? “That’s a really good question. I don’t know. I think that’s another thing that’s ongoing and evolving as we go. As the younger guy that’s never really watched a race with single-file restarts, I remember when we talked about it and threw around the idea I was like, ‘Man, that seems kind of lame to me.’ It seems like you take the excitement out of the race and, for me, an opportunity. I think if you’re the leader, a single-file restart is great, but as a guy trying to improve their spot and make an aggressive move, double-file definitely gives you a better opportunity for that, but on the flip side I really thought the single-file restarts went really smooth this weekend and got us back into the flow of a race much quicker, which was definitely unexpected. I think both things, because we moved the restart zone back to try and prevent the turn one wrecks and then single-file also, so I thought it honestly all went much smoother and you’re still bunched up but you’re back to racing instead of just wrecking each other and muscling each other out of the way. Like I said, it’s one spot at a time from there instead of just big chunks.”
CAN YOU REMIND ME IN TERMS OF HOW YOU GAINED SO MUCH GROUND AT COTA IN THE FINAL LAPS? YOU SEEM TO HAVE BENEFITED FROM THE DOUBLE-FILE RESTARTS THERE. “I think I’ve been on the beneficial side of most. Indy last year, we were able to come away with fourth. We were relatively fast then, but still definitely benefited from some chaos at the end, where at COTA this year we were running OK and then I got spun with probably only five laps to go. Then we were able to make our way back up with other guys getting spun, so my look at it is kind of like sometimes you’re gonna be the one that gets the short end of the stick, but there are gonna be more opportunities for it in the future. To me, I definitely always look at them as an opportunity and maybe that’s more so because I’ve come out of the good side more than the bad side.”
