DOVER, Del. -- It didn't matter to David Gilliland that his motorcoach was parked in Dover International Speedway's equivalent of "the back 40" -- outside the fence that encloses the rest of the driver/owner coach lot in the track's infield.

Gilliland was plenty proud of what his TRG Motorsports team had accomplished in Friday's qualifying for the second race in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, Sunday's AAA 400.

“

It's been neat for me this year ... this is kind of racing back the way it used to be.

”

DAVID GILLILAND

Gilliland put the unsponsored No. 71 Chevrolet into the field in 18th -- better than two former NASCAR champions and 2009 Chase contenders, fastest of the nine go-or-go-home cars and, to a point made earlier in the day by Chase driver Greg Biffle, better than five of the seven Roush Fenway Racing-affiliated Fords.

He did it with a car that in some respects could be considered a candidate as a museum piece.

"I was sitting in the car waiting to qualify looking at the dash and thinking, 'this is the car that made TRG Motorsports,'" Gilliland said with a laugh. "It's the car we got from [Richard] Childress and it was the only car we had for the first three or four races -- the races where it was sink or swim. And we took the same car every week, raced it and turned it around and re-raced it.

"If we would've missed any of those races, who knows where we would have been."

Gilliland's found himself shaking his head often this season, and Friday was just the latest episode after he got back in TRG's ride after a three-race absence.

"It's amazing, and every week I look and think it's amazing what we've been able to accomplish as a team -- everybody at TRG Motorsports," Gilliland said. "It's a small group of guys and we don't have teammates to go to and compare anything. We don't have any of that stuff and to run as well as we have, I'm really proud of it.

"The economy and where the sport is at right now and the struggles that some of the teams have had is a plus for TRG Motorsports because we only have -- I think [crew chief] Slugger [Labbe] said there's only 10 guys now -- but those 10 are guys that deserve and are qualified to be on a top-15 team. They were, but due to downsizing it gave us the ability to handpick some people and that gave us a great big difference."

Friday was the latest episode of giant-killing by owner Kevin Buckler's miniscule Sprint Cup team that's qualified for 27 consecutive races after missing the season-opening Daytona 500.

Buckler has pointed out the bite of his "small dog" is what makes it so effective, and Gilliland agreed TRG's work ethic, which he shares due to the way he came up in the sport, is the difference.

"We were good [10th] in practice, but we got loose and were loose on our qualifying lap so we were disappointed, but like our general manager, Mike Brown, said, 'It's good when you can be disappointed qualifying 18th' -- and we outran a lot of people spending 20 times what we can afford," Gilliland said. "It's incredible, actually, and it's been neat for me this year, because when the season started I didn't know what I was doing, and this is kind of racing back the way it used to be, with Slugger and all the guys.

"None of them complains about working too hard, or too many hours. Not one of them says 'it's four o'clock I'm out the door.' And I know at a lot of the bigger teams you can sit in the parking lot and at four o'clock -- on the dot -- cars are pulling out of the driveway.

"I've never raced like that, and none of the guys on TRG Motorsports race like that and I think that's what allows us to get more with less. This absolutely plays to my strengths because I've worked and built race cars, did all my own stuff forever, and then made a living building cars and setting them up for other people."

Gilliland, who drove a Yates Racing Ford last year before he was turned loose due to lack of sponsorship, also made another statement. He landed with TRG in this season's second race and guided that car briefly into the top 35 in owners' points.

Since then, he's made every race he attempted in the 71 car before he was bumped aside when sponsorship considerations of a different kind put 2000 Cup champion Bobby Labonte out of Yates' No. 96 Ford and into the 71 for seven races. Since then, Labonte's run two races in TRG's car while Gilliland subbed for veterans Bill Elliott and Robby Gordon before sitting out New Hampshire.

Labonte got Biffle's attention at Richmond after he out-qualified every Ford.

"To be perfectly honest with you, it's a little bit disheartening that they're that much different," Biffle said Friday morning, before he qualified third. "I know Bobby Labonte is a good driver, and I know [TRG is] a single-car team and it's apparent, since they've made the switch that he's run better in that single-car team car than our cars.

"That constitutes how poorly we're doing as a job or that Yates organization across the street [from Roush Fenway in Concord, N.C.]. We all have the same equipment, and we're just not getting it done. I don't know what else to say, we just simply are not getting the job done."

TRG, on the other hand, is, despite a lack of funding even more profound than Yates experienced last season, when more than 10 different sponsors adorned its two cars.

Gilliland, whose next race with TRG will be at Fontana, wouldn't attempt to put his finger on what might be troubling Yates' -- or Roush Fenway's -- cars. Yates' organization was absorbed for 2010 by Richard Petty Motorsports, which will switch from Dodges to Fords.

"They've got all those teams to pull [information] from, so I don't know," Gilliland said. "I know Travis [Kvapil] and I, when we were over there we ran well at times, but we didn't have a fully funded team or all new race cars -- none of that.

"This year over at Yates they've had sponsorship and I felt like, at the beginning of the season that they were going to be able to take the step that we needed last year because they had funding and sponsorship. And they just haven't -- that whole organization has kind of just stalled and it's hard to put a finger on it.

"If anybody could, they would have done it already and they've got guys, that's all they wake up and go to sleep thinking about. Right now I'm thinking about myself and trying to be here each and every week."

Yates' driver Paul Menard qualified 10th on Friday, his third top-10 of the season, and Biffle said both organizations wouldn't quit trying.

"It's apparent [under-performance], but we're working hard at it," Biffle said. "Some teams are better than others within our own organization, and that confuses us as well. I look at the setup sheet, those cars have the same thing in it I'm running and I'm fourth and they're 34th or whatever. So, sometimes I don't understand that as well."

For his part, Gilliland knows his immediate future holds some races in a fourth Joe Gibbs Racing car, and he hopes to announce even more good news.

"We've got some really good stuff going on," Gilliland said. "Part of the deal with TRG and me and Bobby coming on was due to some of the [Gibbs] stuff I've got coming up that I'm really excited about and we're working on hopefully being able to announce some stuff soon.

"I'm working every day. There's not a day that goes by that I don't pick up my phone and call five to 10 people a day. I'm just trying to put something together because I just want to be here racing at this level."

Buckler said last week that Sunday's race would be a start-and-park deal for Gilliland though Labonte's New Hampshire run was the same thing before a pile of local sponsors signed on at the last minute.