Todd Gilliland runs over fox in mid-race

Todd Gilliland ran over a fox during the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series finale.

During the 2019 NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series’ season-ending Ford 200 on Friday night, November 15, at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Kyle Busch Motorsports driver Todd Gilliland ran over something in his No. 4 Toyota Tundra.

It didn’t hurt his truck much, as he finished eighth, but the front end was somewhat bashed in.

Turns out it was not a squirrel, as the team thought, but a gray fox.

This was announced by team spotter Kevin Hamlin Saturday afternoon on Twitter.

The rest of NASCAR Twitter had a field day with it, and Gilliland provided pictures of the mangled carcass in the comments (don’t look if you’re squeamish; roadkill that’s been mangled by a vehicle at race speeds is not pretty.)

Hamlin, not related to Cup Series driver Denny Hamllin, also spots for Alex Bowman on the No. 88 NASCAR Cup Series team for Hendrick Motorsports.

The Truck Series is sort of the Double-A level of American stock car racing, and the spotter functions kind of like a guide dog for the driver, whose vision is usually quite limited due to safety equipment.

Homestead is apparently located way out in the middle of nowhere, so critters are fairly common occurrences. The track will have their race weekend moved to March in 2020 due to a schedule shakeup, and a new title sponsor in Dixie Vodka, which our sister site FoodSided has more info on.

It’s not unheard of for foxes to lurk in unusual places – while I (Wes) was in high school visiting Washington, D.C., we saw a a red fox nonchalantly trotting through Arlington Cemetery.

And rabbits, squirrels and various birds have been known to meander onto the racetrack from time to time, and there was the end zone cat on Monday Night Football a few weeks ago.

Todd Gilliland has been sponsored in the past by Mars Petcare’s Banfield Pet Hospital, in addition to Pedigree and Royal Canin dog food.

Gilliland will not be returning to the No. 4 next season, instead likely moving over to DGR-Crosley, which is father David is a co-owner of. His actual plans for 2020 have not been announced yet, however.

In two full seasons and 49 NGOTS starts, the 19-year-old has one win, two poles, 12 top fives and 26 top 10s, with a best finish in the standings of 10th in 2018.

While those are fairly good stats on paper, considering that KBM has the best trucks in the field on a weekly basis, they become somewhat underwhelming.

For more racing news within the FanSided Network, be sure to check out our sister site Beyond the Flag, and also the independent racing news site Frontstretch.