Gilliland Takes A&W Colors to Kansas
Team Gets Testing Help from Third FRM Car
Statesville, N.C. (October 4, 2011) - David Gilliland heads to Kansas Speedway this weekend with a completely clean slate. His No. 34 team will have a new paint scheme, new set-up and new ideas for approaching the mile-and-a-half, low-banked oval.
Gilliland's Ford Fusion will sport the orange-and-brown colors of A&W All American Food for the second time this season. Crew chief Peter Sospenzo will also take a different set-up than the one the team used in the team's first visit to Kansas this season. Despite a tough-handling car, Gilliland was lined up for a potential top-25 finish at the June event when he ran out of gas late in the race and wound up finishing 33rd.
The team also expects to benefit from input from Front Row Motorsports' third car, the No. 55 Ford. The additional car has helped the team test out various set-ups each week, providing valuable information to teammates on both the No. 34 and No. 38 teams.
Sunday's Hollywood Casino 400 will be Gilliland's sixth start at Kansas. His best career finish is 22nd (2006 and 2008).
Comments from A&W All American Food team driver David Gilliland going into Kansas:
"Kansas is always a challenge. It's kind of a flatter track and it's just been a tough nut to crack for our team and our organization. But we feel good about being better this time. I've talked with Peter (crew chief Peter Sospenzo) about what we're going to take there setup-wise, and he's got something different he's planning to take, which is good because what we've had in the past hasn't really worked as well as we'd like. So, hopefully we'll leave there with a better result.
"Last time we also had the issue of running out of gas and that was just a fluke thing. So, that obviously isn't going to happen again, and we think we're going to get the car to run better, too, so there's no reason why we shouldn't have a better result this time.
"We've made some progress as an organization since we started running a third car, the No. 55 car. Initially, the team's focus was just getting that car qualified for the race. Now that they're doing that regularly, we can use that car in the second practice session every weekend to 'R-and-D' stuff that the other two teams are trying for the race. Each and every week that team is bringing more to the table as a tool for our organization.
"That's another positive that we'll have working for us at Kansas. We can implement some more stuff that we'd like to try there with that third car. There's a lot of different front-end packages you can run there. You can be on left front, you can be on the right front, you can be coil-bound, you can run bump stops. There are a lot of different things, and with that third car, we can try things out and help the team as a whole."
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