Ford Racing Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Ford Racing Media Zoom Call
Tuesday, April 14, 2026
Todd Gilliland, driver of the No. 34 Love’s Travel Stops Ford Mustang Dark Horse for Front Row Motorsports, is coming off a season-best sixth-place finish at Bristol Motor Speedway on Sunday. As the series prepared for an intermediate track in Kansas this weekend, Gilliland spoke about gaining momentum through the spring and summer months.
TODD GILLILAND, No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford Mustang Dark Horse – WHAT DID THAT RUN ON SUNDAY DO FOR YOU AND YOUR TEAM? “We were talking with our team owner and everyone about how it was a much-needed good run. One good run can really help carry momentum for quite a while, so we feel good about these next few races coming up. Honestly, Bristol has never been my best track, so to get out of there with a top 10 and, honestly, just to run really competitively the second half of that race felt really good. I think we’re all on the same page and pulling the rope in the same direction and really excited for these next few races.”
WHAT HAS HAPPENED IN THE LAST YEAR OR SO THAT HAS YOU IN A SPOT WHERE YOU’RE CHALLENGING FOR TOP 10 FINISHES? “This sport is full of ups and downs, especially in the Cup Series and for our team it seems like there are streaks of good runs and then it seems like we’re in a little bit of a down period where we’re just not bringing speed and not running how we want to. I think last year is a good example of that. I feel like we got off to a good start and then through the summer stretch we were not great at all, and then felt like we finished the year extremely strong. So, all of that brought a lot of confidence coming into this year. Hopefully, we can hit our stride earlier and just bring some speed throughout the whole summer. So far, this year has been the opposite. We did not get off to a good start through the first few superspeedways, just all those different racetracks that you start the series with, so I’m excited about it. It does take some time to get the whole team gelled together, and, like I said, I think how we ended last year should definitely change our expectations and hopefully have more top 10 runs.”
WATKINS GLEN IS COMING UP. WHAT DO YOU EXPECT THERE WITH THE NEW PACKAGE? “I’m excited for Watkins Glen. Obviously, going there earlier in the year is gonna be different, and then with the new horsepower and downforce package, I guess this is the first time I’ve really thought about it, but going up through the esses when you’re already right on the edge. You’re loose one direction and loose the other and you’re almost wide-open, where now I think you’ll see a lot more movement in cars and there will be some cars that are better through there than others. In my opinion, it might open up passing into the bus stop more, where in year’s past once you got out of turn one, you kind of settled in a line going to the esses, like you’re so much on-throttle time that it’s kind of hard to get a good run on guys into the bus stop, so I think that will be an improvement for the racing at Watkins Glen, and then as the tires wear out you’ve got to be smooth and at least keep the tire wear in the back of your mind all day.”
THE ALL-STAR WEEKEND IS AT DOVER THIS YEAR. WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT THAT? “I love switching around the All-Star Race. I think that’s a good opportunity to try stuff and other racetracks. I don’t know that necessarily Dover is a place that is gonna keep the All-Star Race forever, but I think there are tons of other really cool short tracks or different racetracks that NASCAR wants to try out, the fans are always pushing one direction or another and all of these different racetracks, so I think that’s a great place to really try out anywhere around the country. Let’s give something new a try, for sure.”
WHAT HAS BEEN THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE OF STARTING OFF THIS SEASON? “Getting through Daytona and Atlanta I think I wrecked five times in those two races, and you know that can happen going into those two races and we were literally last in points after those. Obviously, we could have had great weeks and been on the top coming out of those, so I think that was just a tough place to start. It kind of beats you down for the first few races, but, to be honest, we really haven’t had great speed. Even going to a place like Martinsville, where I feel that’s more so where we should run inside the top 10 than a place like Bristol, and we just ran in the back half of the twenties all day. So, I don’t know. Our speed just really hasn’t been there. My team and everyone is working super hard. We’ve seen speed from teammates at times, so we’re trying to get all of those things together. This is an always moving target, especially with this new downforce and horsepower package. We got to a point where we have a lot of notes and you still can go off those notes to some extent, but, at the same time, things are a little bit different. I think we’re just barely missing it with these new targets we’re shooting for and with how tight the fields are now, it hasn’t been equating to great speed.”
CAN YOU DIAL BACK YOUR MEMORY TO THE LAST KANSAS RACE WITH THE TIRE AND DO YOU STILL LIKE THE DIRECTION THINGS ARE GOING FOR INTERMEDIATE TRACKS? “Yeah, absolutely. I think all the work Goodyear has been doing has been super helpful. The last four years now it’s been just a continuous progression of all that stuff. We put them in a really tough spot at these mile-and-a-halves, going as low as possible on air and probably even a half-pound lower at times, just because you have to get every ounce of speed you can out of the car and the tires. That puts them in a tough box, but it’s hard to remember honestly. We just started watching some Kansas stuff, but it’s gonna be cooler this weekend. Speeds are gonna be up. I don’t think we had a ton of tire issues on the right sides, so I’m sure teams will keep pushing it, but the more the tires have been wearing out, it seems like these places it becomes easier to pass. A place like Kansas is very wide, so it makes the racing more fun and I’m looking forward to it.”
THE CRASH YOU WERE INVOLVED IN AT BRISTOL, THINGS HAPPEN SO FAST THERE, BUT WHAT DOES IT SAY ABOUT THE TEAM’S RESILIENCE TO FIGHT BACK FROM THAT? “To be honest with you, it definitely felt like ‘here we go again.’ You don’t ever want to feel like that, but starting out the race as poorly as we did, getting down a lap within 30 laps it felt like, getting the wave around, getting the lucky dog. Just before we got in that wreck, I gained a lot of spots. I feel like we were just making some good speed on the top lane and then we get in a wreck and you never really know. That’s the hard part. It gives you five minutes of that caution period to kind of feel everything out, but you’re not always 100 percent sure if things are good or bad. We went to the back again and just kind of rallied from there. It all went super smooth from that point on, but things happen extremely fast at Bristol, too. I was right behind the 48. I couldn’t even see the 97 whatsoever, and then everyone was just stopped. That stuff is unfortunate. It seems like it’s been happening right in our lap, but, at the same time, we’re kind of running right in the hornet’s nest where that stuff happens, so that’s how it goes sometimes.”
YOUR DAD WAS THE FIRST PERSON TO YOUR CAR AFTER THE RACE ON SUNDAY WAS YOUR DAD. WHAT’S IT LIKE TO HAVE A SUPPORT SYSTEM LIKE THAT? “It’s massive. I think first and foremost he’s always just supporting me no matter what, even if I went and qualified 35th which I did on Saturday. He’ll always text me or call me to see what’s going on one way or the other. This sport has a lot of ups and downs no matter who you are. We’ve seen the best of the best have off weeks, so it’s a very challenging sport and I think he realized how down in the dumps I was on Saturday night and for our whole team everyone really was. It’s hard as humans not to be a little bit disappointed and you carry that into the next day even if you don’t want to, so I think the recovery from that – the mental side of it and all of that from my whole team. I think him being around it for so long, he recognizes when that stuff is going on, for sure.”
WHAT KIND OF RACE DO YOU EXPECT AT KANSAS? IT HAS PUT ON SOME GREAT RACES AND GREAT FINISHES. WHAT ARE YOUR EXPECTATIONS? “My expectations are the same as what you just said, great racing, crazy restarts. I think that’s the biggest thing that we’re always focused on is qualifying well to get some good track position for the first stage, and set yourself up well for the race, and then just good restarts. The rest of it is you want to have good pit stops, gain yourself spots and just parlay that all day into gaining spots. As a driver and what I can control, restarts are definitely big. There are so many options. Even sometimes if you go to the bottom it’s a short-term gain, but once you get to the backstretch five cars pass you, so it’s about thinking further ahead. It’s hard to do sometimes, but at least have a plan going in and trying to execute that plan.”
YOU, NOAH AND ZANE SEEM TO WORK WELL TOGETHER ON AND OFF THE TRACK. CAN YOU TALK ABOUT YOUR FRIENDSHIP WITH THOSE GUYS AND HOW IS THE GOLF GAME GOING? “I’ve got a big golf game this afternoon, so I’m hoping it’s good. But, yeah, my relationship with my teammates I think is the best friendship as teammates I’ve ever had by far because I’ve known these guys forever, and we have a lot of fun. To me, I think that really brings our teams closer together as well. If you see your drivers getting along and hanging out, I think it just makes all of the communication around the shop a little bit better. Obviously, I don’t know that it equates to results because we haven’t been running great, but I would like to think it helps just for the whole camaraderie of our shop. All of us being young, we definitely need to lean on each other as we lack a little bit of experience as a whole. Just our communication and all that stuff needs to make up for it in a different way, so it’s been fun. I feel like I know these guys as good as anyone else on the racetrack and it’s definitely been great to be teammates with these guys.”
