Giant Slayer

He later helped Brendan Gaughan bring organization to his NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series operation in Nevada and bailed out Robert Yates when he was looking for an interim crew chief to work with Dale Jarrett.

"I was walking around PRI when Clay came up and talked to me," recalls Wilburn. "I told him if he was serious about running a Busch team, he couldn't do it from the West Coast and that he would have to fund a location near Charlotte. I wasn't going to work from California."

The team came together in just two months, and by early summer it was running out of Travis Carter's former Winston Cup shop about 45 minutes from Lowe's Motor Speedway. Nadeau-still recovering from life-threatening injuries suffered three years ago at Richmond-was offered the job as a mentor and coach.Nadeau's 2003 wreck left him unconscious for 20 days. The result of the brain injury, in the form of numbness on the left side of his body, revisits him from time to time. He's driven at most of the tracks the new team will race on during its abbreviated season, and he is the voice of experience, teaching Gilliland what to expect.

"There's not much that I can really tell David, though, because he's so good," Nadeau says.

But sometimes just being good is not good enough.

Running with the big dogs

Three weeks before his win at Kentucky, Gilliland failed to make the field at Lowe's Motor Speedway, where he was squeezed out by Nextel Cup regulars and teams with guaranteed spots. Gilliland was the 35th fastest car, but at the end of qualifying, the crew was loading up the trailer. The situation left the team more frustrated than discouraged.

"If they want to see these kids succeed, they need to simply take the fastest 43 cars," says Wilburn. "No guaranteed spots. No provisionals. Just buckle in and show me what ya got.""We can't keep up with those Cup teams on a financial basis," adds Wilburn. "When we compete with Cup teams, we can't match them in the talent pool."

The veteran says that the decreasing number of full-time Busch squads is making that talent pool smaller and smaller each season. It also limits the number of options for young drivers who labor season after season in one of NASCAR's touring series, hoping one day to make it to the professional ranks. Fans of the current situation fall into the "if you can't run with the big dogs, stay on the porch" camp. They like seeing Kasey Kahne, Greg Biffle, and Kevin Harvick give them a Busch-level preview of Sunday's big show. Critics, meanwhile, contend NASCAR has to do something before its next group of young guns-those driving in the Dodge Weekly Racing Series, for example-becomes discouraged with the diminishing opportunity to move into one of its big three divisions, gives up, or goes elsewhere.

"For a small team like us, when we are running against the Cup guys, it's hard to go to a sponsor and say 'we'll try to qualify, but we are going up against 26 or 27 Cup drivers and there's no guarantee we'll even make the show.' The odds are so far against us," Gilliland says. "I think NASCAR would have a lot more Busch teams if there weren't so many Cup drivers in the series every weekend," he adds. "It really is affecting the number of teams that can afford to even try to run the season."

Wilburn says the proliferation of Cup teams represents everything that's right and wrong about NASCAR's Busch Series. The series is attracting fans and sponsors like never before, and much of its recent popularity is due to the number of Cup drivers who regularly compete in it. That's the good part. But at the same time, the big-moneyed Busch teams-really satellite operations of Cup outfits-leave little chance for novice drivers to finish well, attract sponsorship, or even pay the bills. That's the part that hurts the independent teams that should be nurturing the next generation of drivers.

"But we knew going into this deal it wasn't going to be easy," says team owner Andrews, "but that doesn't mean we are afraid to take our best shot."

Who are these guys?

At 30, Gilliland is older than a lot of his contemporaries trying to make it in the Busch Series, but he also is the hands-on kind of driver a small team needs. He apprenticed under his father, Butch Gilliland.

"I began working on cars my dad drove in Winston West," says Gilliland. "I started by cleaning cars, then I took care of the tires. Pretty soon I was working on the cars. Eventually, when my father lost his crew chief, he asked me if I'd do the job. Then we won the championship in 1997."

David was the youngest person ever to win the Crew Chief of the Year award in the series.

"At that point I was racing on dirt at Perris Speedway", he says, "but I wanted to move up the NASCAR ladder, so we moved into the Dodge Weekly Series, the Southwest Series, and then Grand National West."

He found success all along the way, winning 70 races on the West Coast and driving to the '05 short-track title at the Toyota All Star Challenge at Irwindale Speedway.

"I think I'm a better driver given that during the past four years I was building my own cars," Gilliland says. "I think that helps give Billy confidence in what I tell him as a driver, because I know how the cars are put together, and I think he trusts my judgment." "I think my experience is an advantage. A lot of young drivers come in and they are fast, but they wreck a lot of equipment. We can't afford to do that."

Andrews likes his driver's maturity.