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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
CUP: Speed, Gilliland Struggle Mightily
David Gilliland and Scott Speed had high hopes for this weekend, but things have gone very wrong...
Tom Jensen  |  Posted June 21, 2009   Sonoma, CA
Scott Speed will race in Joe Nemechek’s No. 87 NEMCO Motorsports Toyota during the Toyota/SaveMart 350 at Infineon Raceway. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

Local racers David Gilliland and Scott Speed came into the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Infineon Raceway with high hopes and huge expectations, but a couple of mistakes quickly dashed their dreams.

Speed, from Manteca, Calif., learned to road race at the Jim Russell Driving School at Infineon. But that didn’t help him on Friday, when he ran off course in Turn 10 and failed to qualify his Red Bull Racing Toyota. As a result, Red Bull cut a deal to put Speed in Joe Nemechek’s No. 87 NEMCO Motorsports Toyota for tomorrow’s race, where he’ll start from the back. The two teams had a similar arrangement earlier this season when Speed failed to qualify at Darlington Raceway.

Gilliland had even bigger problems, as he crashed into the back of John Andretti during the first of two rounds of Sprint practice Saturday morning. As a result, he will use a leased Earnhardt Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates Chevrolet for his team’s home race. TRG used to have its headquarters at Infineon Raceway, and now is based about 15 miles away from the Northern California track.

“It was a 100 percent my fault,” said Gilliland, who had the best Cup finish of his career in this race last year. “I was exiting pit road and looked down for a brief moment to turn on my fan switches and John Andretti stopped in front of me to let some cars go by and I hit him. I hate it for the guys. We are taking the back-up car out, which is our short-track car to get ready for the race. Slugger (Labbe crew chief) and the guys will have a good car for me. This just increases our motivation for the race. I smashed a couple of grapes on the Adobe Road car this morning, so tomorrow we will try and make some wine.”


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