David Gilliland wheeled his Yates Ford to a second place finish two weeks ago at Infineon Raceway. (Photo: Rusty Jarrett, Getty Images) » More Photos

GILLILAND LOOKS AHEAD
David Gilliland scored a career-best second-place finish at Infineon Raceway last month and the improved performance of his Yates Racing Fords have him optimistic about the second-half of the season. “Momentum’s hard to get, and I feel like we’ve got some here lately,” said the California native. “We’ve been as competitive as we’ve ever been, if not more, the last few weeks, so it’s been good. I think that Yates Racing is building on that and taking advantage of the momentum, and doing, really, everything we can with it.”

A blown engine in the closing laps at Chicagoland Speedway last Saturday dropped Gilliland to 42nd in the LifeLock.com 400, but that hasn’t curbed his enthusiasm. “I feel like the whole Yates Racing is just going to get better the second half of the season,” he said. “We’ll go back with our engineers that Travis (Kvapil, his teammate) and I have been working with for the first time, so I think the second half of the season, we’re just going to get that much stronger.”

Tom Jensen is the Senior NASCAR Editor for SPEEDtv.com, the former Executive Editor of NASCAR Scene and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. He is the author of “Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of SPEED,” and has appeared on television and radio shows to discuss NASCAR racing. Jensen is the President of the National Motorsports Press Association. Jensen is the 1997 National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year and has won numerous national and state awards for news reporting, columns and feature writing. The Answer Man is back at SPEEDtv.com. Tom Jensen answers your questions during every race week and looks forward to hearing from you - please e-mail it to