Gilliland: The Monster Is a Moving Target

“Dover is one of my favorite racetracks. It’s just got a lot of speed. If you’re going 150 miles an hour, it feels like you’re going 200 mile an hour. It’s a lot fun and a handful. It’s a physically and mentally demanding racetrack and it puts on a great show. It’s like a roller-coaster ride, for sure. I remember my first time there, driving off the straightaway down into the corner, I thought it was never going to land. It gets a light feeling.

“You’re aiming for a moving target. Once the track starts taking rubber and starts getting black, the car drives 100-percent different than when the rubber’s not down. So, do you set up and adjust your car to drive on the rubber at the end of a run? Or for the first three-quarters of a run when it’s not down? So, it makes it really challenging to chase it. It’s strange to go around the track on a black racetrack, and then caution comes out, and by the time you go green again, it’s regular white concrete again. It’s kind of crazy.”