When it was announced last fall that Todd Gilliland would get a full-time NASCAR Cup Series ride straight from the Camping World Truck Series in 2022, the reaction of many was that the 21-year old third generation racer was being rushed to the top of his profession -- something which seemed to run in the family.
In 2006, David Gilliland was a West Coast racer who was just emerge nationally as a part-time driver in what is now the NASCAR Xfinity Series. Then, in his seventh start, Gilliland pulled off one of the biggest upsets in NASCAR history by winning a race at Kentucky Speedway for an independent, upstart team. Two months later, after the sport's top car owners had practically fallen over each other to try and sign him, Gilliland had a full-time Cup Series ride with Robert Yates Racing. Gilliland was able to make a journeyman career out of it -- 333 Cup starts and the pole for the 2007 Daytona 500 -- but it was hardly a recipe for long-term success or a single Cup Series win.
A surface level examination suggested that, like his father before him, Todd Gilliland was being rushed to Cup. And by his own admission, and despite his own long-term goal of racing there, getting the opportunity to drive a Cup car full-time at just 21 came as a surprise to him. But to start his Cup career, Gilliland has quickly shown that the only thing he's rushed to is respectability.
In six races to start his rookie season in Cup, Gilliland has finished inside the top 20 three times, ran up front in the Daytona 500 before being taken out in an accident, and is coming off a career-best 16th place finish last weekend at Circuit of the Americas. Despite his young age and all of his previous experience coming in the Truck Series, Gilliland has proven both poised and prepared for the rigors of Cup -- something he attributed to not only a strong finish to the 2021 Truck Series season, but also in large part to a mentality instilled in him by his father's quick rise through the ranks.
"You're never gonna know what to expect until you actually do it. And I think that's the biggest thing that he's told me is just 'You can win at all these different levels, but then when you get to the Cup Series, it's gonna be 100 times harder than anything you've ever done,'" Gilliland told CBS Sports. "He thinks of it as 'You just need to be able to get there and experience it, and it'll make you a better driver over time.'
"I think it's a little bit different – I think I have a little bit more experience just putting in four or five years in the Truck Series. Luckily I've been to a lot of these racetracks, and hopefully I have a little bit of the experience factor on him there. But also I'm quite a bit younger getting into this opportunity. That's the main thing."
If there was anything good that came out of David Gilliland being thrust into the Cup Series so quickly, it was the opportunities that he was able to avail his son as he made his way up the ranks. Now a successful team owner in the Truck Series and ARCA, Gilliland's good name and connections opened up opportunities for his son, including the opportunity to drive Front Row Motorsports' No. 38: The same team and the same car that the elder Gilliland drove for much of his Cup career.
By the end of 2021, Todd Gilliland had become one of the top drivers in the Truck Series, leading 238 laps over the final five races on his way to a career-high seventh in the final standings. But despite running nearly four full seasons in Trucks, quite a few questioned Gilliland skipping the Xfinity Series -- effectively bypassing an entire step of the conventional NASCAR ladder system -- in favor of a mid-pack Cup car that had cycled through multiple one-and-done rookie drivers from 2019 onwards.
"Going into this season, obviously you see everyone saying 'This kid's gonna burn and fail. He just skipped Xfinity' like it's gonna be a huge deal. But it's all about the opportunities," Gilliland said. "Obviously I'd love to run Xfinity, just move up slightly and keep learning. But there's no opportunities to do that, so you have to take what's in front of you.
"Overall, I've been so surprised at how close the Cup cars drive to everything I've been used to in the Truck Series and beyond. I think it's been really, really good. As far as learning, going to these racetracks is the biggest thing. I have a lot of experience at the majority of them, and I've been pleasantly surprised at how close the cars actually drive.
"I'm sure I could have learned a lot more in Xfinity, just racing one step more. But overall, I'd say I'm pretty surprised how close everything's been."
Gilliland acknowledged that the level playing field of the Next Gen car has created great opportunities for rookies and young drivers in general, as the long-established veteran stars of NASCAR who had mastered the previous generation of car are suddenly on the same learning curve as their younger, rawer counterparts.
Though Gilliland's early results haven't grabbed any headlines, they've been as good if not better than anything that could have been expected from a driver in his situation. And on his own part, the first six races of his rookie season have defied the number of expectations -- zero, to be precise -- that Gilliland had.
"I really don't think I had any (expectations) for myself. I was just so kind of amazed by the whole thing that I was just trying to get my grasp on everything," Gilliland said. "... I think overall, expectations have been met on my part so far. I've been happy with the races I've been putting together."
While there's a long way to go yet before the Rookie of the Year title is decided and handed out, the focus for Todd Gilliland has been on building his program for the future. A patient process familiar to him from the Truck Series, where he helped build Front Row's Truck program from scratch over a two-year period. Enabling that is the belief that Front Row Motorsports -- particularly team owner Bob Jenkins and general manager Jerry Freeze -- have in him as their young, up-and-coming driver.
Now entering the month of April, there is still much for Gilliland to adjust to. Racing almost every week from February to November marks a major change from the more spread-out Truck Series schedule. So too does the distance of Cup races, which are nearly two and a half times longer than anything Gilliland did in Trucks.
But for all the talk of him being rushed to Cup, Gilliland has found reason to be content with his first half-dozen races at NASCAR's highest level as he eyes his next steps and the next steps for his race team.
"I feel like I've been super happy with what I've been doing. My team has been doing a really good job trying to get a grasp on this new Next Gen car," Gilliland said. "Obviously we're trying to work to get more speed, but as far as executing races I feel like we've done a really good job of that. Hopefully we can continue that throughout the season."
