TODD JEREMEY GILLILAND - 05/15/2000
A professional race car driver and son of NASCAR driver David Gilliland. Gilliland first started driving when he was three years old; his parents purchased a pink (later repainted to black) Barbie corvette with modified pedals and an additional battery to increase its speed. Afterwards, he began driving a quarter midget on a neighborhood dirt track. Two years later, he started racing competitively, but stopped for two years at the decision of his father. In 2012, he won championships in the North Carolina Quarter Midget Association, USAC World Formula National Quarter Midget Championship and on the West Coast; he concluded his quarter midget career with 34 wins. The following year, he started limited late model racing, running three races. In 2014, he won his first limited late model race from the pole position at Ace Speedway. Later in the year, he won his first late model race at Southern National Motorsports Park. On May 17, two days after his fifteenth birthday, Gilliland became the youngest driver to compete in the ARCA Racing Series when he made his debut at Toledo
Speedway with Venturini Motorsports. After leading the race weekend's practice session and qualifying fifth, he held off Tom Hessert and Josh Williams to win, becoming the youngest winner in ARCA series history. On November 12, Gilliland ran his first race in the K&N Pro Series West for Frontline Enterprises and Bill McAnally Racing at Phoenix International Raceway, taking the lead with five laps to go after JJ Haley's, (now known as Justin Haley), tire went down and defeated William Byron on the green–white–checker finish to win. On January 29, 2016, Gilliland joined Kyle Busch Motorsports' Super Late Model team. After winning at Kern County Raceway Park, the victory
K&N Series win 2016
ARCA Series win - Toldeo 2015
marked his fourth K&N Series win in four starts, tying the record set by Dan Gurney 50 years earlier. In May, he was named a member of the 2016–17 NASCAR Next program. Gilliland clinched the Pro Series West championship on October 15. In December 2016, Gilliland signed with Kyle Busch Motorsports to run four Truck Series races in the #51 Toyota Tundra in 2017. In six starts he had best finishes of third, fifth and seventh. On November 4, Gilliland won the Pro Series West championship for the second consecutive season. On January 17, 2018 KBM announced that Gilliland would compete for NASCAR Truck Series Rookie of the Year in 2018, driving the #4 Toyota Tundra beginning at
Martinsville Speedway, and most of the races following that. He was held back from starting at the beginning of the season because of his age. He ended with six Top 5 finishes and nine Top 10's. Gilliland was brought back to drive for Kyle Busch again in 2019 to run the full season. He did much worse than Busch expected and finally called Gilliland out publicly saying he was going to have to step it up or risk losing his ride. Much like Kyle Busch's other Truck series driver; Harrison Burton; he seemed to put himself in bad situations and crash himself. Seven of the first 16 races saw Gilliland finish 14th or worse while driving one of the best trucks on the circuit. Busch's comments seemed to light a fire under his drivers as they began performing better; but both were not able to make the Chase. Finally at Martinsville Gilliland broke though to get his first career win. Gilliland ended up driving for owner Bob Jenkins in the Truck Series in 2020. Although Todd didn't drive one of the top flight trucks in the series; he did manage to run
First Truck Series win - Martinsville 2019
Truck series win - 2021 Circuit of the Americas
well when he didn't have mechanical issues or get caught up in a crash. He posted 13 of 17 finishes in the top fifteen; with ten finishes in the top ten. Gilliland ran full time in the Truck series in 2021. He crashed out of the season opening race at Daytona; then ran off a nice string of finishes including a win at COTA in the ninth race of the season. After that his only blip was when he crashed out at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway, right outside St Louis. All his other races saw him finish inside the top ten up until the next to last race of the season. He finished seventh in the season points, but had impressed Front Row Motorsports owner Bob Jenkins enough to take the chance and move Todd up into the Cup Series for
2022. He ran for Rookie of the year and had Michael McDowell as a team mate. His first Cup Series race was at the 2022 Daytona 500. Gilliland started 29th and finished 33rd after being eliminated in an incident on lap 190. Gilliland's lack of experience in the Cup cars showed. He had his first top 15 finish at Darlington in race number 12. He came home fourth on the road course at Indianapolis for his season's best finish. He did gain a lot of valuable seat time. He only crashed out of the big super speedway races at Daytona; Atlanta and Talladega after being caught up in 'the big one' at those tracks. He had a good run going at Watkins Glen before he had rear end issues. He did show he could still win in
first Cup Series top 5 - Indy 2022
Truck win - Knoxville 2022
the Truck series as he made one start, coming at Knoxville on the half mile dirt. He started ninth; led 58 laps and go the win over John Hunter Nemechek. Gilliland returned to wheel the #38 car again in the Cup series in 2023. The season opening race saw him get caught up in a late race incident and finish 27th in the Daytona 500. He posted four Top 10 finishes on the season, the first coming at COTA where he was tenth. He also finished tenth at Talladega and Martinsville. His best run of the season came when he finished eighth at Bristol on the dirt. It was tough for the small, Bob Jenkins owned Front Row Motorsports cars to be competitive week in and week out, but Gilliland ended up in the Top 15 on eleven occasions. He will be back with FRM in 2024. Some info from Wikipedia.
2023 Cup ride
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