David Gilliland will make his Nextel Cup debut this weekend in the Dodge/Save Mart 350 at the Infineon Raceway. The Riverside, CA native will pilot the #72 Dutch Quality Stone Dodge for CJM Racing. Gilliland hopes to bring the momentum of his monumental win in the NASCAR Busch Series to the Napa Valley road course. He became the first non-NEXTEL Cup regular to win in 18 straight Busch Series races when he took the checkered flag in the Meijer 300 at the Kentucky Speedway. Gilliland has a successful history at the Infineon Raceway. He won a NASCAR AutoZone Elite Division, Southwest Series event at the track in 2004. The Gilliland name has legions of fans on the West Coast due to the achievements of David and his father, Butch Gilliland. Father and son teamed up as driver/crew chief and captured the NASCAR Winston West championship in 1997. As a result David became the youngest to ever win the Crew Chief of the Year Award for that series. The younger Gilliland has over 70 wins, in various series, on the west coast. Team owners Bryan and Tony Mullet are getting their feet wet in the Nextel Cup Series. In 2005 they acquired interest in the former operation of Morgan Shepherd. Recently they bought the team outright and are in the process of building new cars and a new shop. “We are going there to make the race and get a solid finish. We tested at Virginia International Raceway two weeks ago and were really pleased. The motors are strong and Doug George (crew chief) and I are working well together. I think it would be foolish to expect a repeat finish from Kentucky, but a solid top-20 is not out of the question,” Gilliland said who will be a guest of the California legislature on Thursday morning at the State Capitol in Sacramento. He will be a part of the proclamation of “NASCAR Weekend” in Sonoma, will be a part of the Raybestos Rookie press conference on Friday morning and be a guest of the Speed Channel show “Trackside Live” on Friday evening.(Moore Consulting Group PR)(6-21-2006)
