Hailie Deegan won her second NASCAR K&N Pro Series West race of the season Saturday night after contact with leader and teammate Derek Kraus on the last lap.
Deegan led on the overtime restart and chose the bottom lane. Kraus restarted on the inside of the second row. On the restart, Kraus got underneath Deegan in Turn 1 and took the lead. Running second on the last lap, Deegan went under Kraus in Turn 3. They made contact. Kraus spun. Deegan scored her third career series win.
Deegan explained her move afterward:
“On the restart, (Jagger Jones, who was second) I thought that was who was going to run me hard. So I picked the bottom when I was normally picking the top. I went into that corner, went in hard, so I was already kind of on the edge. I was not expecting my teammate (Kraus) with a broke sway-bar to take a swing at me like that.
“I thought he was going to play cautious. In the end, I told you guys last week, if you take a swing at me, I’m going to take a swing at you back. It was hard race, and I don’t want to run my teammate like that, but I also did not expect him to race me like that. Hard racing is hard racing. You want to race me hard, I’m going to race you hard. That was some fun racing, I’ll have to admit.”
Kevin Harvick has gone from humble roots in his native Bakersfield, California, to the highest levels of NASCAR racing, including the 2014 Cup championship.
But even with all the success he’s had in his racing career, Harvick has never forgotten where he came from, namely grassroots racing.
That love for the sport at its most basic level has prompted Harvick and his KHI Management firm to partner with NASCAR’s newest sanctioned racetrack – All American Speedway in Roseville, Calif. – for a unique contingency awards program.
Kevin Harvick (Getty Images).
Known as the KHI Management 4 Award, the partnership will provide $150 cash prizes for competitors in All American Speedway’s Division 1 Late Model class who are running in fourth place at the halfway point of each race there, as well as for finishing fourth in the same race.
In addition, full-time competitors in Junior Late Model, Limited Modified and the Super Stock divisions also will be eligible for KHI Management awards for fourth-place finishes in their own races.
“Someone like Kevin, who rose up the ladder of NASCAR racing from the weekly track level up to Cup champion, stepping up and helping give back to local grassroots racing – it speaks volumes,” track promoter Bill McAnally said in a media release. “It shows an understanding of the value that the weekly tracks play to make NASCAR what it is.”
The All American Speedway’s season opens April 13 with eight main events scheduled. Weekly track championship battles will run until Nov. 2.
Bill McAnally was “fighting to get $2 to put gas” in his pickup in Ukiah, California, where he hauled bales of hay.
David Gilliland helped his dad, Butch Gilliland, field his entry in his first full-time season in NASCAR’s Winton West Series, which became the K&N Pro Series West circuit.
Chris Lawson, the son of parents who work in the insurance industry, chipped away at his own racing dreams in Dayton, Ohio.
In the last 15 years, McAnally won five of his record seven K&N West titles as a team owner. David Gilliland competed in 398 races in NASCAR’s three national series, including 332 in Sprint Cup. Lawson embraced the life of a crew chief.
All three men would help Todd Gilliland become NASCAR’s youngest champion.
THE NEW KID
McAnally only made 56 starts as a driver in what used to be the Winston West Series.
One race weekend, at All-American Speedway in Roseville, California, stands out to the owner of Bill McAnally Racing thanks to the helping hand of Butch Gilliland.
Gilliland flew from Anaheim to help McAnally with his car after he ran behind him in a previous race and saw how bad it handled as he ran behind it.
After they were done, Gilliland refused to let McAnally pay for his plane ticket.
“’I’m just glad you’ll be in a better car so I’m not in harm’s way,” Gilliland said.
Two decades later, at the same .333-mile track in Northern California, McAnally doused Butch Gilliland’s grandson, Todd, in a Gatorade bath, yelling “Congratulations, Champ!”
Todd Gilliland finished eighth last month in the Toyota / NAPA Auto Parts 150 to clinch the K&N Pro Series West title.
At 16 years and 5 months, the Riverside, California, native became the youngest NASCAR champion in history, topping the mark set a month earlier by Cayden Lapcevich (16 years, 10 months, 16 days) in NASCAR’s Pinty’s Series. Before that, Joey Logano held the distinction after winning the 2007 K&N Pro Series East title at 17 years, 3 months, 28 days.
“We had a lot of family there, that’s where almost everyone is from.” Todd Gilliland said a week after winning the title. “They all came out to the track to support us. It’s super cool to be able to take a picture with everyone I’ve grown up around.”
The path to those championship portraits started at Roseville in August of last year. McAnally held a two-day driver expo at his team’s shop and All-American Speedway.
Todd Gilliland, who won his first ARCA Racing Series start in May, was among the drivers invited, including Brandon McReynolds and Chris Eggleston.
Also present: former NASCAR crew chief Larry McReynolds, multiple NASCAR officials and representatives from NAPA Auto Parts, Toyota and the WIX Corporation.
Waiting for the drivers at the track were six K&N cars prepared by McAnally’s team. On the first day, each driver made three, 15-lap runs. After tune-ups based on driver feedback, they made mock qualifying runs.
It was before the initial practice session that McAnally had his first lengthy talk with Todd Gilliland. McAnally said he thought the young racer seemed “really nervous.”
“His driving showed it,” McAnally said. “He wasn’t consistent, he wasn’t smooth. David (Gilliland) was on the radio leaning on him. The coach we had with him was calming him down, and by the second session he had calmed down and he went out there and ran some smooth, consistent laps. By the next day, he was the fastest, smoothest driver out there by far.”
Todd Gilliland also was impressed.
“We saw the A+ operation he had going on there, the people he had in place,” the driver said of McAnally in May. “We just felt it was the best fit for us this year.”
McAnally and his sponsors agreed.
Gilliland ran the No. 54 Toyota for McAnally at Phoenix at the end of the year. In his first K&N West start, he led six laps and won.
David Gilliland (Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images)
FATHER-SON TIME
While David Gilliland had a hand in building his son’s cars, he didn’t get to see much of Todd’s career.
That’s what happens when your Sprint Cup Series career takes priority for 10 years.
But David was there when his son did donuts in a quarter-midget in a dirt lot across the street from the family’s Riverside home. He also saw Todd’s first quarter-midget race on his son’s fifth birthday, his ARCA win and the 2015 Phoenix race.
Without a Sprint Cup ride for the first time since 2006, David Gilliland finally experienced a full season of his son’s career.
And he did do so in his least favorite racing role – as a spotter.
“’I just didn’t want to be part of a problem or making a mistake or something like that,” David Gilliland said. “It was something (Todd) really wanted me to do.”
Instead of having a driver coach, spotter and crew chief taking to his son, David Gilliland would be the coach and spotter.
“I think that’s something that’s helped me a lot this year to have him tell me when I’m doing something wrong or right,” Todd Gilliland said. “He kind of makes myself better throughout the entire race. He also knows a lot about those cars and different situations that he’s been in before.”
The other voice talking to Todd Gilliland was Lawson, the crew chief who has worked with the Gillilands since 2014.
With that arrangement, Todd Gilliland won his first four K&N starts, tying the 60-year-old record set by Dan Gurney. His eight wins in 2016 surpassed the mark set Joey Logano (2007) and Dylan Kwasniewski (2014).
Source: Bill McAnally
FILLING UP THE BOARD
McAnally was concerned.
Todd Gilliland hit his first real bump by finishing ninth in his second K&N East start at Bristol in April.
“All of sudden we’re off on our setup,” McAnally says. “We missed it. We had a top-10 car. So he finishes the race. I’m shaking my head, ‘How’s he going to be getting out of the car?’ All he’s ever done is win in a K&N car and now he’s fighting to be in the top 10.”
When he arrived at the No. 16 car, McAnally found his driver sitting on its door in good spirits.
“Lead a lap, top-10 finish,” Todd Gilliland announced. “I get two more splats on the board!”
On the wall of McAnally’s shop is a 10-by-20-foot board labelled “2016 Team Checklist.”
The board has 11 items that can be checked off by McNally’s four drivers for any given race. They include finish race lead lap, top-three finish, win race, and at the bottom, win championship.
Todd Gilliland was the only teammate to put a “splat” in every box.
While Todd Gilliland enjoyed a rookie season no one else has, including being named to the NASCAR Next class, he’s enthusiastic about learning what he hasn’t from his owner, father and crew chief.
Lawson saw that enthusiasm during the K&N East race in July at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
Todd Gilliland was in second on a restart with two laps to go. Corey LaJoie, a veteran of 37 K&N races, led.
“(LaJoie) just smoked us on the restart,” Lawson said. “He just wore us out bad, and right after the restart was over, literally going down the backstretch, Todd is about four car lengths back off of him and goes ‘Man, that is awesome. I need to learn how to do that.’
“To me that’s cool, not only that he realizes it, he understood what happened, he wants to step his game up to be that good. He wasn’t mad, saying we got beat. He said ‘man, I want to do that. I want to be able to do that.’”
He’ll get that chance next year, whether it’s in the K&N Series, ARCA or venturing into the Camping World Truck Series.
Before that, Todd Gilliland will celebrate his title Dec. 11 at the NASCAR Touring Night of Champions Awards.
Then he can start preparing for next season and giving people reasons to consider what they were doing at 17.
The quick progression of young Todd Gilliland up the racing ladder continues.
The 15-year-old son of NASCAR driver David Gilliland will compete full-time in the K&N Pro Series West in 2016 for six-time and defending series championship team Bill McAnally Racing, it was announced Wednesday.
Gilliland drew a great deal of attention two weeks ago when he won his K&N West debut at Phoenix, making him the youngest winner in series history.
“We finished the year strong, with Chris clinching the championship at Phoenix and Todd scoring the win in his series debut,” team owner Bill McAnally said in a release. “We plan to work hard in the off-season to carry that momentum forward into next season.”
Gilliland is a third-generation competitor in the K&N Series. Father David won the rookie title in 2004 and grandfather Butch won the 1997 series championship.
“Hopefully, I can carry on the family tradition,” the youngest Gilliland said in a team release. As for the 2016 season, he added, “It’s going to be a great learning experience. It will be good to have a championship driver like Chris Eggleston to lean on and learn from, especially early in the season.”
Gilliland will be teammates with defending 2015 K&N West championship driver Chris Eggleston, as well as Riley Herbst.
All three drivers will race the full K&N West schedule, along with select events in the K&N East Series.
Eggleston won the 2015 K&N West championship for BMR in his first full season in the series and will return to defend his title in 2016.
A native of Erie, Colorado, the 26-year-old Eggleston has three wins, 11 top-five and 12 top-10 finishes in 17 career starts in the K&N Pro Series West.
Much like Gilliland did with his win at Phoenix, Eggleston won his first race with BMR in 2014, leading McAnally to put him in a full-time ride that resulted in the championship in 2015.
Herbst, meanwhile, will make his debut in the K&N West Series in 2016. In 2015, Herbst won the championship in Speed Trucks as a rookie at Irwindale (California) Speedway.
“It’s great to have Chris return to defend his title and to have such talented young drivers as Todd and Riley join the team,” McAnally said. “We have high expectations, based on what we have seen from all three of them.”
