Derbyshire dug in on the second day of play at Trent Bridge, leaving Nottinghamshire frustrated despite three wickets a piece for Brett Hutton and Harry Gurney.
Samit Patel and Luke Wood also chipped in with two wickets each as the visitors ended their first innings on 363, with a century from Billy Godleman helping them to a lead of 134.
In the final session of the day Notts reached 67 for two, still 67 runs adrift.
Assistant coach Paul Franks reflected on a tricky day for Notts.
“We are behind the game, let’s not kid ourselves. I think Derbyshire have played better cricket than their position in the table suggests and we’ve not been at our best. Let’s not hide from that.
“We didn’t do enough yesterday with the bat to get into a position where we could then capitalise with the ball.
"We created a chance to dismiss Billy Godleman last night and didn’t take it and he made us pay with a hundred, so credit to them for building a very good first innings score and they are now putting us under pressure.”
Wayne Madsen, who began his innings at the start of play after Shiv Thakor had fallen in the final over of the first day, was able to get his innings up and running by tickling Harry Gurney to the leg side fence for four and then repeated the dose off Luke Fletcher.
Godleman, the visiting skipper, reached his 50 from 80 balls with six fours and his partner brought up the same milestone from 94 deliveries with nine fours.
Brett Hutton eventually made the initial breakthrough just before lunch by pinning Madsen lbw for 56 after a third wicket partnership of 112 with his captain.
Harry Gurney picked up two wickets for the home side in the hour after lunch, removing Alex Hughes for 12 and Gary Wilson for 13.
Hughes’ dismissal, an lbw, was eventually confirmed by umpire Patrick Gustard, who then had a long consultation with his colleague Graham Lloyd before sending Wilson on his way.
Godleman’s eleventh boundary, a leg side tickle off Gurney, took him to his 15th first class century from 155 deliveries and propelled his side past Nottinghamshire’s first innings total of 229.
Daryn Smit helped his captain add 58 for the sixth wicket before also falling to a leg before wicket decision, given out against Samit Patel for 32 despite his bat-pad prod deflecting the ball down to the third man fence.
Jamaican umpire Gustard, umpiring his second first class match during a short stint in England, clearly likes to give himself as much time as possible before making any decisions.
A lengthy deliberation with umpire Lloyd resulted in the end of Godleman’s near six-hour marathon after the pair agreed that an under-edge had carried all the way into the wicketkeeper’s gloves.
Further scrutiny preceded the fourth lbw of the day, before he upheld Patel’s appeal against Tony Palladino.
Later, Gurney did well to cling on to a high swirling catch off Jeevan Mendis forced by bowler, Hutton.
Notts were further held up by the last wicket pairing of Tom Taylor and Conor McKerr, who added 34 before Gurney grabbed his third wicket by having Taylor caught at third man.
With the momentum of having gained a first innings lead over Notts, for the first time since that victory in 2002, Derbyshire were further buoyed by knocking over two top order batsmen in the closing 14 overs of the day.
McKerr removed Jake Libby for the second time in the match with Smit taking a smart catch with the gloves, before the ‘keeper followed up with an even better effort to send back Cheteshwar Pujara off Taylor.
Events at Epsom Downs may have led to the hashtag DerbyDay trending worldwide on social media but as the Derbyshire players returned to the sanctuary of their dressing room they could, quite rightly, agree that it also belonged to them.
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