Todd Gilliland understands full well the stark reality of his position in the NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series Playoff standings—there’s no one behind him.
The task at hand for Gilliland is to avoid elimination from the Playoff on Saturday when the field will be trimmed from 10 drivers to eight after the Chevrolet Silverado 250 at Talladega Superspeedway (1 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Yes, Gilliland is 10th in the series standings, but the news isn’t all bad. After Playoff races at Bristol and Las Vegas, he’s just 65 points behind first-place Brett Moffitt entering an event that can scramble the standings. He’s 19 points behind eighth-place Christian Eckes, who has never raced at Talladega,
And with non-Playoff driver Sam Mayer winning the postseason opener at Bristol, there are seven Round of 8 positions still open after Austin Hill’s claimed the first one with last weekend’s Las Vegas victory.
With nowhere to go but up and with a corresponding sense of freedom, Gilliland will make his third Talladega start on Saturday. In his most recent outing at the superspeedway, the 20-year-old driver of the No. 38 Front Row Motorsports Ford finished second to Spencer Boyd last year.
“We’re going to go in there and be aggressive,” Gilliland asserted. “If we wreck trying to go for the win, I think we can live with ourselves on that, whereas other guys that might be able to let someone in and still make it on points, those guys are going to be looking behind them and worrying about points this whole week.
“For us, it’s pretty simple. There’s no one behind us. We can only move forward from here if we do our job right.”
Source: Reid Spencer | NASCAR Wire Service
