As road courses have become a bigger part of NASCAR, drivers have been forced to put in more work making left and right turns. Every approach is different, but for Todd Gilliland, he's worked more in the virtual world.
The Front Row Motorsports driver did not grow up racing on road courses. According to Racing Reference, he didn't make his first start on one until Sonoma Raceway in 2016. He finished 24th. Later that season, he posted consecutive runner-ups at Utah Motorsports Campus behind future teammate Noah Gragson.
Despite a lack of experience, he's scored a Truck Series win at Circuit of the Americas and posted four top-10 finishes in 17 road course starts. He has one top-10 in two street course starts.
"It's just been, I think, more so race experience," Gilliland said in response to a question from AltDriver. "Like I never grew up go-karting or anything like that. I've always ran ovals my whole life.
"So I ran my first road course race in the K&N Series, so not too long ago. But on the other side, since I've been in the Cup Series, I had a couple go-karts, been out to the go-kart track a little bit. But at the same time, it's not necessarily the same. Ran a ton of laps on the simulator. I think that is probably the biggest thing that I focused on."
Gilliland added that all of the Cup Series drivers are going to be in the same ballpark after three laps at each respective course. They won't be that far off from each other at Sonoma, Chicago, Watkins Glen, or any other track.
So what he can do to separate himself is use the simulator to learn the course like the back of his hand. He will complete hundreds and hundreds of laps while finding his exact brake markers and other key track details. This way, he can be as good as possible on his opening lap.
Of course, simulator work is not the only way that Gilliland pursues improved performances on road courses. He also does extensive film study to examine the best lines at each of the tracks on the schedule that require left and right turns.
The streets of Chicago are fairly self-explanatory, according to Gilliland. It's a lot of 90-degree corners, so the drivers don't have many options for finding faster lines. Yet, the film study provides other crucial information.
"Line wise, it's not that hard," Gilliland said. "But different technique and stuff that we see at a street course with the roughness, the braking, the apex walls, like I said, how you angle into them, and all that stuff. So yeah, we're looking at all that stuff for sure."
These efforts have paid off so far for the Front Row Motorsports driver. He hasn't yet won on a road course, but his first top-five finish in the Cup Series was at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course. He has since posted two top-10s at Circuit of the Americas, one in Chicago, and one at Sonoma Raceway.
Gilliland will now return to Chicago with an opportunity to contend for a playoff-sealing win, or at least some crucial points. Will he accomplish this? That largely depends on how the race unfolds and whether the drivers encounter rain for the third consecutive season.
At this point, Gilliland has more confidence in the No. 34 team and the progress it has made over the first 18 weeks of the season.
"I think we have really good speed," he said. "I think that's what separates kind of average guys on road courses to really good guys is having that speed right away, which I feel like I have now.
"But like making it last over the course of a run and being smart with your tires, all that stuff. So I think we still have a little bit of room to go to have race speed at a road course, but I definitely think we're getting closer."