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. (Continued)