With very little sponsorship and a skeleton crew, David Gilliland and TRG Motorsports aren’t going to contend for a championship in NASCAR’s elite Sprint Cup Series anytime soon.
But they head to Martinsville Speedway this weekend locked inside the top 35 in points, a huge victory for a small team fighting against the economic slowdown in NASCAR.
“It’s been nerve-racking,†said Gilliland. “We’ve just had to take it week by week and fight hard to get to this point. From here, we only hope it gets a little easier.â€
That’s not likely for TRG, an acronym for The Racers Group. Founded by Kevin Buckler, a former sports car driver with an extensive and successful background in that series, the team is fighting an uphill battle in NASCAR’s elite division. They’re racing against multi-car teams with millions of dollars in sponsorship and fully staffed engineering departments.
But fresh off a 1-2 finish in its class at the Rolex 24 sports car race (ninth and 10th overall), TRG put together a Sprint Cup Series team in under two weeks and went to NASCAR’s season-opening Daytona 500 intent on proving to the industry that … Details