It doesn’t take long for drivers to gain a reputation in the garage area and in David Gilliland’s case, he’s viewed as one of the best restrictor-plate competitors in the sport.

 

That was no more evident than last season in the Daytona 500 as he hooked up with fellow Ford driver Carl Edwards on the final restart and charged through the field. The two-car tandem looked like a couple of horses making a late kick down the homestretch of the Kentucky Derby, but they fell just short at the start-finish line as Edwards finished second and Gilliland third.

 

Still, that effort was noticed by a number of competitors in the garage area, including NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Tony Stewart, who worked with Gilliland in the April Talladega race and helped him to a ninth-place finish.

 

Those were Gilliland’s only two Top-10 finishes in 2011, which marked his second season with Front Row Motorsports.  He’ll be switching car numbers for the 2012 campaign as he moves from the 34 to the 38 for car owner Bob Jenkins.

 

Gilliland came out of nowhere in 2006 to become a household name in NASCAR circles. At the time Gilliland was driving for an unsponsored, part-time NASCAR Busch Series team owned by Clay Andrews. Lightning struck and he became the first non-NASCAR Cup Series driver to win a then-Busch race in ‘06. Gilliland captured the Meijer 300 presented by Oreo at Kentucky Speedway in June in only his seventh series start.

 

A number of teams began calling him on the telephone, but Robert and Doug Yates ended up putting together the right offer and secured him as their new driver of the No. 38 Ford Fusion, replacing Elliott Sadler at Michigan in August.

 

Gilliland, who actually made his Cup debut earlier in the season at Infineon Raceway with an independent team and finished 32nd, ended up starting the final 14 events for RYR and showed marked improvement from start to finish.

 

As expected, it took him some time to get used to the more powerful engines and stiffer competition, but by the end of the season Gilliland found himself consistently running among the top 20.

 

He got so comfortable in fact that he even managed to win a pole, capturing the top spot for the UAW-Ford 500 at Talladega in October. That led to his best finish of the season—a 15th-place run that he eventually matched a couple of weeks later at Atlanta.

 

Just as many drivers who eventually make it to NASCAR’s top division, Gilliland credits his father for helping him realize his dream. Butch Gilliland was one of the top drivers year-in and year-out in the NASCAR Winston West Series and David was right there working as a mechanic and then as crew chief.

 

Both father and son were recognized as the best at their jobs in 1997 when Butch won the Winston West championship, but David got the driving bug and ventured behind the wheel the following season.

 

The Southern California native proved to be as adept driving a car as he was turning wrenches. Gilliland won twice in the stock division at Perris Auto Speedway in ’98 while running a limited schedule, and was even better on a full-time basis one year later when he won nine times.

 

He graduated to Irwindale Speedway and competed in the late model division and eventually was a full-timer on the NASCAR Southwest Tour. Before hooking up with Andrews, Gilliland was competing in the Grand National West Series, where he won rookie of the year honors in ’04 and Toyota All-Star Showdown in ’05.