Gaughan Takes on Texas Motor Speedway

Driver: Brendan Gaughan
Owner: Michael Gaughan
Event: Sam’s Town 400
Track: Texas Motor Speedway
Race: Friday, June 9 – 8:15 pm (CDT)
Qualifying: Thursday, June 8 – 6:00 pm (CDT)
1.5 -mile oval, 250.5 miles/ 167 laps

The piece: Gaughan will drive Orleans Racing’s T20.

Gaughan on Texas: “We all know the history of the Orleans Racing team at Texas. We’re going to show up there and I’m going to have my cowboy hat and my cowboy boots and my Texas buckle and we’re going to show our Texas pride. We’ve worked our tails off on truck T-20, which is our primary truck for there.”

“We’re not bringing Lonestar, so Rambo’s got some pressure on him. We’ve been joking that if we’re not near the top of the board on Lap 1, I’m going to crush him for not bringing Lonestar. Lonestar is not retired, yet. The boys are working on Lonestar right now but they’re taking their time with it. We want to make Lonestar the best truck in the shop again because I’ve got a lot of history with that truck.”

“We’re going with T-20. It’s the one we ran at Charlotte and it ran good there. We just had a rough tire that we struggled with and we still finished 14th. We’re hoping that we might be a little better at Texas. It’s a similar style track and we have a lot of experience there.”

“With all the problems that the Orleans Racing team has had this year we’ve got to look at the bright spot and that’s our pit crew. The pit crew is fantastic right now. If Rambo and I can catch break on some of our calls and strategy we’d be all right. The pit crew has not been a problem this year and that’s nice to see that the boys’ hard work has paid off.”

“We’re cautiously optimistic. We’ve been better than we were last year everyplace we’ve gone. That’s our goal. It’s tough because I love to go to Texas and my father loves to go there. We have a ranch just down the road and all the cowboys that are our buddies have been to the track with us. So it’s tough to go there with a little bit of insecurity and thinking that we’re not as good as we used to be. In 2002 when we won, nobody expected us to win then either. So you never know. This team is resilient and the best truck that we can put on the track is going to be there.”