Underdogs Gilliland and TRG hope for more Sonoma magic
SONOMA, Calif. – The gentle brown hills surrounding Infineon Raceway have always felt like home for David Gilliland. And they actually are home for TRG Motorsports owner Kevin Buckler, whose winery and sports car shop are just up the street.
Both driver and owner hope to squeeze just a little more magic out of the winding road course this weekend, a place that has been so good to each of them.
It was three years ago that Gilliland, in the week following his dramatic upset victory in the Busch Series race at Kentucky, attempted to make his Sprint Cup Series debut at Sonoma.
His CJM Racing car, to put it nicely, was not very good. It was near the bottom of the charts in practice, and he was driving for a team that hadn’t qualified for a race all year.
The team, he recalled, was so skeptical about its chances of making the show that it booked return flights home for Friday night instead of Sunday.
“I said, ‘Man, you guys cannot come to the race track like that,’” Gilliland said Friday with a chuckle.
But at the track where once sat atop the pit box, guiding his father Butch to victory lane in the West Series, Gilliland somehow got the car into the show.
“It was a good day,” Gilliland said, smiling at the memory. “Definitely a weekend I’ll never forget.”
Gilliland was an underdog then. Still is.
Now driving for the underfunded upstart TRG Motorsports – Buckler’s sports car outfit that expanded into the Truck series and now Sprint Cup – Gilliland has qualified for every race this season since he joined the team the week following its failed effort to make the Daytona 500.
For all his success in sports cars – including at Infineon – Buckler is just as big of an underdog in NASCAR as Gilliland was three years ago.
He remembers asking the local Bay Area media for coverage at the start of the season, and it was promised to him if the team actually lasted long enough to bring a car to Sonoma.
Buckler himself had doubts, but he and Gilliland have combined to make a great pairing. Gilliland made the field and qualified 32nd for Sunday’s race, and Buckler said the team has gotten coverage in every local newspaper this week.
It reminded him of the first time he ever came to the Sonoma track, fielding a sports car, and just hoped not to embarrass himself. His team won the race that day.
As the years went by, he watched the NASCAR races at Infineon and said he thought, “Someday, doggone it, I want to have a car out here.”
Buckler grinned.
“So today’s the day,” he said. “Pretty cool.”
