David Gilliland should once again have a full dance card this weekend as the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series goes tandem racing at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway. The driver of the No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford has proven to be a skilled partner in the two-car draft, earning a top-5, two top-10s and three top-20s in restrictor-plate races in 2011.
Sunday’s Good Sam Club 500 will be Gilliland’s ninth Cup start at the 2.66-mile superspeedway. He has one start from pole (2006), one top-5 finish and two top-10 finishes at the track in his career. He finished ninth at Talladega in April after drafting most of the day with the No.14 car of Tony Stewart.
Comments from Front Row Motorsports driver David Gilliland heading to Talladega:
“We are bringing the same car back which is obviously a good thing. We’ve been fortunate enough to not wreck our car that we started out with getting a third-place finish at Daytona. We’re bringing that car back again, which is a good thing. The restrictor plate races are nice because they are spread out enough to where you can go back to the shop and work on the car in between races to fine tune it and make it better. I feel like we’ve definitely made it better.
“We’ve done a lot of work on the cooling system. NASCAR has done some rule changes that are going to make it feel like a different race than the previous three speedway races have been. I don’t think you’re going to be able to push for nearly as long as you were able to before and it’s going to make a whole different race.
“I am anxious to get out there and see exactly how long we can push for, what we need to do on tape configurations for the front end to keep the motors running cool. They changed the pop-off valve for the cooling systems as far as how much water pressure you can run the cooling system, which means you’re going to start losing water at a lower temperature and that’s really going to dictate how long you can push. We all know that when you can push, the cars are so much faster together.
“It’s going to be a little bit of a different race. I’m really anxious to get out there and get practice in to see what we have and get to work on our program. The restrictor plate program has obviously been our strong point as a team and we’ve definitely got high hopes going into Talladega.
“We’ve had multiple people come up and ask us about working with them, so that is a good feeling and something that you obviously need at a track like that, people to work with and that want to work with you. We’ve had that and we’ve had three good solid races and that obviously helps, so I don’t think we’ll have a problem finding someone to work with. “
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