Brooklyn, Mich. — David Gilliland was officially named driver of the No. 38 M&M’s Ford Fusion today. The announcement was made at Michigan International Speedway prior to the weekend’s first practice session. This weekend also marks the return of Todd Parrott as crew chief of the No. 38 team.

Gilliland is set to race in Saturday’s Carfax 250, his first race in the No. 38 and his first race at Michigan International Speedway.

Gilliland, Parrott, and team owner Doug Yates spoke about Gilliland as the new driver for the No. 38 car.

DAVID GILLILAND — NO. 38 M&M’S FORD FUSION
“It’s a dream come true for me, to be associated with such a great sponsor such as M&M’s. Just looking forward to having such a fun sponsor and such a family-oriented sponsor. I’m definitely a family guy and it means a lot to me. We’re really excited, couldn’t have hand-picked a better sponsor, that’s for sure, so it’s all part of my dreams coming true. To be associated with Yates Racing and Doug Yates.

“Doug Yates has been such a huge supporter of mine, and the whole Yates family and Yates organization has treated me like gold in the last two weeks. It’s just an honor to be associated with a championship-winning caliber team. Just very, very excited about the opportunity. To have the 39,000 associates supporting us each and every week and keeping up with us, and helping us get back to where we need to be and running up front. And then to have Todd Parrott—the deal just keeps getting better for me. Last week we announced Todd Parrott as crew chief—he’s a championship crew chief, and with all his experience I’m hoping it will help cut down my learning curve a little bit and get us to where we need to be. I’m just very excited about the opportunity and I look forward to working hard getting Robert Yates Racing and M&M’s back in victory lane.”

DOUG YATES—CO-OWNER, NO. 38 M&M’S FORD FUSION
“Thank you, guys, for coming out today. I feel like the luckiest guy in the garage this morning. I walked in here and felt like everything was back to the way it’s supposed to be. Todd is our crew chief. Todd is part of our family, we’ve had a lot of success together and we’re comfortable working with each other. He knows what to do with the cars and I know what to do with the engines—if I don’t, he’ll tell me and we’ll get ’em right. Also, to have M&M’s as our sponsor, the best sponsor in racing. How could you ask for anything better? Just a true, family sponsor, the kids love it, the fans love it. And it’s our goal to sell M&M’s and make that red M&M run up front, that’s what we’re charged to do.

“I want to talk about David Gilliland for a second. I’ve got some friends in the business, been around a long time, and earlier this season they said, ‘You need to watch this guy. This the next Dale Earnhardt.’ And early on I started watching him, and every practice session he’d be at the top of the sheet. Every race he competed in, very competitive in, with, really, just hand-built equipment, not a big organization behind. Really, the true test of drivers is when a driver can get in average equipment and make it look better than average, you’ve got a good driver right there. After the Kentucky race, when he won, I called my dad up and said, ‘We just got our new driver,’ and he thought I was talking about Stephen [Leicht], and I said, ‘No, Stephen finished 10th,’ that night. I said, ‘No, I’m talking about the guy who won the race.’ We started talking after that and here we sit. So, I look forward to out future and, once again, I feel like the luckiest guy in the garage today.”

TODD PARROTT—CREW CHIEF, NO. 38 M&M’S FORD FUSION
“I appreciate the opportunity to work with David. Coming in as a rookie—my whole career with Robert Yates Racing, the 10 years I’ve been here, on and off through the years, I’ve worked with experienced race-car drivers, so to get to work with David—he’s been a crew chief so he understands what it’s like being in this position and he’s a great race-car driver. He showed a lot of ability. People have watched him all year long and like Doug said, if you’re the next Dale Earnhardt, then, man, I’m pulling for you. That would be really good.

“I’m glad to be back at Robert Yates Racing. Being at petty Enterprises the first 22 races was a very good experience for me. I enjoyed working with Robbie Loomis and Kyle, Richard, Bobby, the whole deal, but this is home for me. I sat down with Robbie last week before I went to Watkins Glen—him and Kyle said he understood. Robbie had to make the same decision a year ago, almost the same exact time, to go back to Petty Enterprises. I’ve won races, 30-something races, here at Robert Yates Racing, a championship, and, like I said, it feels like I’m coming home and got all my toys to play with again. So, I feel like a big kid again. Again, thanks a lot and I’m looking forward to the success we have.”

MODERATOR
ARE YOU GOING TO GIVE UP THE CHANCE TO RUN FOR ROOKIE OF THE YEAR, AND HAVE YOU BEEN CLEARED FOR TALLADEGA?

DAVID GILLILAND, CONTINUED
“We’re going to give up or rookie status. We feel like it’s more important to run the races and get the experience on some of these tracks that I have been to. We feel like if we run the rest of the races this year, next year we’ll have gone to all the tracks except for one or two, and we think that’s more important, I feel that’s more important to being successful next year, and that’s our main goal so that’s what we’re going to do. And, Talladega, they’re going to keep an eye on the next couple of races and if everything goes good we will be cleared to run Talladega.”

MODERATOR
A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO YOU SAID YOU VERY CLOSE TO SOMETHING. WHAT WAS THE HOLDUP? ALSO, YOU’VE JUST BEEN COMPARED TO DALE EARNHARDT. HOW DOES THAT MAKE YOU FEEL?

DAVID GILLILAND, CONTINUED
“It feels great. I’ve worked my whole life for an opportunity like this. To race, I’ve devoted my whole life to racing, and to get an opportunity to race at this level is a dream come true. And then to have M&M’s as a sponsor and Doug Yates building your motors and behind you 100 percent and Todd Parrott as your crew chief, it don’t get any better than that. My feeling is we’ve got the best team in the garage area and we’re going to stick by that and try and go out and win some races. The holdup? Just a couple final details that weren’t quite done yet. Todd just came last week, and I think we just wanted to make the announcement all at once.”

DOUG YATES, CONTINUED
“Can I answer that real quick? They say everything happens for a reason. The whole combination wasn’t complete yet, and now it is.”

MODERATOR
THERE’S BEEN A TREND OF DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS IN RECENT YEARS. IS THERE A REASON YOU DIDN’T GET DISCOVERED DURING THAT RUSH AND YOU WERE IN YOUR 20S AND EVERYONE WAS LOOKING TO HIRE 20-YEAR-OLDS?

DAVID GILLILAND, CONTINUED
“We did get looked at quite a bit. I was very close to running some races for Hendrick Motorsports. I was in the Roush Gong Show in 2004. We’ve done a lot of stuff. The Roush deal, I was one of the three finalists and they didn’t pick me. I don’t know why, they couldn’t tell me why. But I’ve been under the so-called radar for a while. Everybody I talked to on the West Coast, including Rick Hendrick and Jack Roush, they just said keep winning races at what you’re doing, on a weekly basis, so that’s all we did. We raced everything we could and won races and that’s how we got here.”

MODERATOR
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE HERITAGE AT YATES RACING AND BEING HELPED BY ERNIE IRVAN? AND, WHAT WILL YOU HAVE TO WORK ON WITH TODD PARROTT FOR THIS WEEKEND AT MICHIGAN?

DAVID GILLILAND, CONTINUED
“I grew up as a kid watching the 28 car win races with Davey Allison and then Ernie Irvan. You know, he was from the West Coast like me. I remember when Ernie Irvan got that deal, it was an inspiration to myself and my dad that guys from the West Coast can make it. And now that’s just become more and more real. Harvick—there’s a lot of people from the West Coast. It’s been great for myself. As far as working with Todd, we tested this week and it went really, really good. He’s very open, and like told him, I’m a rookie, and anything you can do, I told everybody on the team, if you see me doing anything please tell me, I want to learn and cut down my learning curve as much as we can, so I’m very open also. I’m expecting it to work out very, very well.”

MODERATOR
IT HAS NOT BEEN A GOOD SUMMER AT YATES RACING AND YOU PROBABLY HAVE NOT WANTED TO READ WHAT’S BEEN WRITTEN ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION. WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THIS DAY WITH M&M’S RETURNING, TODD PARROTT RETURNING AND THE ADDITION OF A NEW DRIVER?

DOUG YATES, CONTINUED
“I won’t kid you, there’s been a few Friday mornings I didn’t want to get out of bed, and this morning I couldn’t wait to get in here. In all honesty, it feels like things are back the way they’re supposed to be. I love racing at Michigan. We’ve won races here together before. Having M&M’s back with us, having David Gilliland drive our car, having a future is something—I think everybody just wants to know, where are we heading? That’s where the stuff starts to swirling. Where are you heading? Who’s going to be driving? Who’s going to be sponsoring?

“As we start putting some of these things to rest, we can start focusing on our performance. It’s hard for anybody to get focused on anything when there’s so much speculation. This is just one piece to the puzzle, and I’m just happy to be here. And I’m looking forward to practice today and the race on Sunday. And I can’t say enough about Todd. People have to understand that Todd is so key to our deal, and he and I have such a good relationship. Even last year as we sat in Dover, Delaware, and had a press conference—we switched teams around, he went out three races later and won a race. Why did we make changes at the end of the year? Because we were stupid, and we shouldn’t have done that, but we’re back, things are back in place and I can’t wait to go forward.”

MODERATOR
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT RETURNING TO ROBERT YATES RACING AND WORKING WITH A DRIVER WHO JUST SAID HE’S OPEN TO ALL HELP?

TODD PARROTT
“Working at Petty Enterprises the first part of the year was a great experience. I really enjoyed it. It was a hard decision to make. So much press, you guys have written so many good things all year about what’s gone on up there, and that’s great because it’ll continue going on because Robbie’s still there. He’s a very key part of what goes on at Petty Enterprises. He’s very smart. He’s won a championship with Jeff Gordon. But this is home to me.

“When Doug called a few weeks ago and told me to bounce the idea around a little bit, it wasn’t hard. Like David, I’ve got two little boys at home, it’s an hour-and-half drive up there every day, so that’s three hours on the road. I weighed all my options out and it was just a smart choice.

"Like I said, I’m like a big kid again. I got all my toys to play with, a lot of the same people to work with and I’m really excited about that. Talking about David, we tested at Kentucky on Tuesday and we had a good test. His communication was really, really good. His feel for the race car, I was quite surprised. I didn’t know what to expect because, like I said, I worked with experience drivers my whole career with Rusty Wallace, with Dale Jarrett, with Elliott Sadler, so I’ve had guys that had a lot of experience.

“To have the opportunity to work with David, he doesn’t have any bad habits. He’s one of these guys that, hopefully, the Kurt Busches, the Kyle Busches, these guys that don’t know any better. Just to get to work with him. I kind of look at it as, you know, you put Jimmy Fennig with Kurt Busch and in just a couple two or three years they win a championship. I kind of look at that scenario.”

MODERATOR
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ABLE TO TALK TO DAVID GILLILAND IN THAT “CREW-CHIEF LANGUAGE”?

TODD PARROTT, CONTINUED
“The talks that we have had this week, there’s been a lot going on and we’re just trying to get the car ready for up here. Testing Tuesday, changing everything over, the seats and all the stuff, the snowball got rolling last week at Watkins Glen. As it rolled on it just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger, so we didn’t spend a lot of time together, but the time we did get to talk, that is an advantage. He understands the car, he understands the chassis. What changes do. If you change a spring he knows what it’s going to do, he knows what he needs to feel. So, yeah, that is a big plus to have that in our pocket. He’s hungry, he’s willing to win. Getting Robert Yates Racing back where it belongs, on top, winning races, being consistent. Winning races isn’t in my thoughts right now. It would be great but I think if we get in the top-15, that’s where we got to be.”

MODERATOR
IS YOUR TEAM CONSIDERING ALIGNING WITH SOMEONE? IS THAT WHAT IT’S GOING TO TAKE TO COMPETE?

DOUG YATES, CONTINUED
“There’s no doubt that you have to grow to be to that level. NASCAR set the limit at four times, that’s what was out there and if you’re going to compete, you’ve need the resources of four teams. I think we all agree on that. How you get there is things we’ve been kicking around. It’s tough to grow, it’s tough to find great sponsors like M&M’s. They’re just not around every corner, so how do you do that? We’ve been exploring opportunities and that’s some of the things that are swirling. Robby’s [Gordon] not buying our whole place, I want to put that to rest. Man, you guys caused us a lot of pain, I’ll tell you that. That Jayski guy is killing me. I want to tell you something: If you guys weren’t talking about us, I’d really be worried. Because the reason you guys are talking about us is because you expect more of us, and I appreciate that. And we are determined to get back to where you can say some good things about us when we get there.”

MODERATOR
HAS THERE BEEN ANY TALK OF ONE OF JACK ROUSH’S TEAMS COMING OVER TO RUN UNDER THE YATES BANNER?

DOUG YATES, CONTINUED
“You don’t know Jack very well, do you? I’m sorry. Jack and I, our business partnership has been a great relationship. It’s provided good opportunities for me to grow, hopefully, given us better resources to do a better job. But the team side of things is separate. We’re big boys and he’s big, and at the end of the day Todd Parrott wants to beat them as bad as anybody else out there, and you have to keep that separate. If Ford provides resources to work with, then that’s good, but at the end of the day there’s only room for one owner in victory lane.”

MODERATOR
YOU MENTIONED ROBBY’S NOT BUYING “THE WHOLE THING.” IS THERE A SENSE THAT THERE MIGHT BE A PART OF IT THERE?

DOUG YATES, CONTINUED
“We’re looking for opportunities to grow our business. We have to make smart decisions for the future. My dad is at the point in his career where if he’s making every decision of every day he wants to pass the torch off. And I’ve got a lot of responsibilities on my shoulders. Sometimes you need some energy to help you get there. So, we’re going to see how things shape up and make the best decision for our organization, our people, to get a chance to get our cars in victory lane. That is the goal. How you get there, those are tough decisions. But the goal is to get our organization back where we can win the Brickyard, we can win the Daytona 500, we can have four teams that are competing at a very high level every week. That’s a tough ‘how to we get there?’ And that’s what we’re looking for.”

MODERATOR
HOW IS THIS DIFFERENT FROM THE LAST TIME YOU RETURNED TO ROBERT YATES RACING?

DOUG YATES, CONTINUED
“I hope we still have the same success and take it where we left off. At the end of last year, working with Dale, we were knocking down some top-10 finishes really well. Like I said, just stepping back into the shop with all the people, everything going on. There’s been a lot of change there this year. It’s been a tough summer. I sit over there in the truck and listen to all this, too. When you’re somewhere for so long, it’s like a home, you feel like it’s a part of you. Just hearing all that stuff, getting our cars where they need to be, getting our people lined up where they need to be working, who needs to be doing what. It’s a goal. We’ve had a lot of success there. I’m open to a lot of changes. There are some good people there when I was there that I’m really excited about. The 38 pit crew is signed up for two more years and we all know that pit crew is one of the best on pit road. I’m really excited about that.

“I do say a lot of the same things, but what else do I say? I got Doug Yates, I got M&M’s as a sponsor. Just really excited to be back and just hopeful to get things going in the right direction, and, like Doug said, get the press where you all are saying good things about Robert Yates Racing, not about all the bad things that have happened. I ain’t even thinking about the bad things.”