Gilliland preparing for Daytona

David Gilliland, the Yates Racing driver from Riverside who used to race at Irwindale Speedway, will have a number of changes awaiting him when he tests at Daytona International Speedway next week.
The biggest change will be in crew chief. Charles "Cully" Barraclough is Gilliland's new crew chief on the team's No. 38 Ford. It's a reunion of sorts. Barraclough and Gilliland were together when they won the NASCAR Busch Series (now the Nationwide Series) race at Kentucky Speedway in 2006. The win vaulted Gilliland into prominence and helped him land the ride he has at Yates Racing.
But Gilliland has struggled in his time with Yates, a little over a year. He's had some decent qualifying runs, including winning the pole for last year's Daytona 500, but the race results have been far from stellar.
Still, Gilliland said he was really excited about testing at Daytona.
“Our Yates Racing team has been working extremely hard to get our cars ready to test this month and I’m very proud of all the guys," Gilliland said. "I had such an amazing experience last year at Daytona during Speedweeks that I’m really looking forward to jumping in my No. 38 Ford Fusion on Monday morning.”
Barraclough was the crew chief for the team's No. 88 car with Ricky Rudd as driver for the end of the 2008 season. Rudd retired. The No. 88 went to Dale Earnhardt Jr. And Barraclough moved over to Gilliland's car.
“I’m thrilled to be reunited with Cully Barraclough for this year,” Gilliland said. “Cully was on my team when I won my Nationwide Series race in Kentucky back in 2006. He and I have a lot of history and it’s really exciting to be reunited with him this season knowing that he’s my crew chief.”
Yates is still a two-car operation. Travis Kvapil is the team's other driver in the No. 28 Ford and participated in the test sessions at Daytona on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
Kvapil was strong the first two days of testing at Daytona, among the top 10 fastest drivers. But he slipped into the bottom 10 on Wednesday.
“We had a great test with Travis Kvapil and the No. 28 Ford Fusion earlier this week,” said owner Doug Yates. “We were able to learn a lot of things that we hope to carry into this next week when David goes down to test. The advantage of a multi-car team is that you can transfer information to both cars and that’s what we plan to do. We’re really looking forward to bringing Cully and David down this week to Daytona. David had the opportunity to sit on the pole here last year for the Daytona 500 and he’s just very good at these superspeedways. I can’t wait to get down to Daytona with the No. 38 team this week and see what happens.”