Gaughan Goes For 100 and 31 At Kentucky

Driver: Brendan Gaughan
Owner: Michael Gaughan
Kentucky 225
Kentucky Speedway
Race: Saturday, July 8 – 8:15 pm
Qualifying: Saturday, July 30 – 4:30 pm
1.5 -mile oval, 225 miles/ 150 laps

Notes of Interest:

The Kentucky 225 event will offer driver Brendan Gaughan a pair of watershed moments in life. The first is that when he rolls off the grid for this weekend’s Kentucky 225 he’ll be starting in his 100th career NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series event. The other landmark will be that the Kentucky 225 will mark Gaughan’s last race as a 30 year old as on July 10th Gaughan will roll the meter over one more time when he turns 31.

Highlighting Gaughan’s nine year career: His first start was in 1997 when he piloted a truck owned by famed racing legend, Walker Evans at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Gaughan didn’t wow them in the event but it was the start of something big.

Gaughan ran a couple of events per year until 2002, when he took his show fulltime on the tour. Gaughan came within several laps of being the series champion in 2003, but trouble dashed his yearlong dream. After running in Cup in 2004 Gaughan returned to the Craftsman Truck Series in 2005.

Gaughan is coming off his best finish of 2006, 4th at Kansas, when he starts in this week’s Kentucky 225.

The piece: Gaughan will drive Orleans Racing’s T-1

GAUGHAN ON HIS 100TH CAREER START IN THE CRAFTSMAN TRUCK SERIES - “I didn’t even know that this was my 100th start in the Craftsman Truck Series. That is neat. We have been around here a long time. I can still remember my first race. It was 1997, November, the last race of the season at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. I drove the all green Orleans No. 20 for Walker Evans Racing as Butch Miller’s teammate. I can remember being at races back when it was the SuperTruck Series with Walker Evans. So I’ve been around this thing since it was started.

“It is neat to hit 100. I wish I had a few more than eight wins in 100. That doesn’t sound too good. Still, we’ve had some great times here. I’ve had a very interesting career here so far.

“We had a good run at Kansas and it’s my birthday weekend at Kentucky. I turn 31 a couple of days after the race. Maybe we can get a birthday present there. It worked for Terry Cook. What the heck!”

WHAT ONE THING ENDEARS YOU TO THE CRAFTSMAN TRUCK SERIES? – “There’s not one big one. Wayne Auten, Dennis Adcock, Randy Kaiser – all the officials that have been there so long. I remember back in the days of Ray Judy, who was a great, dear old friend who passed away a few years back. The biggest thing is the people that are there. There is a great crew of officials. There is a great crew of people that come to every race. The teams that we race against every week. Rick Crawford, Dennis Setzer, Terry Cook, Ron Hornaday, Jack Sprague – those that have been there. I wasn’t there in 1995 but I was working on Walker Evans’ team back then.

“It is still fun to say, ‘Look at how far this has come.’ And it’s fun to say, ‘Look at how far the Orleans Racing team has come just since 2000.’ We’re still the only team slugging away on the West Coast. Everybody gave up on it except for us. Right now I wouldn’t necessarily say we’re proving it’s still working but we’ve proved it in the past and we’re getting closer to proving we can do it again.”

GAUGHAN ON KENTUCKY SPEEDWAY – “We’re taking Lonestar – Chassis No. 1. Our Craftsman Truck team was built in 2000 and we’re up to Chassis No. 23 now. We’re calling it ‘MJ’ for Michael Jordan, No. 23. We’re naming one before it wins a race just because it’s No. 23, man, you’ve got to do it. I’m not kidding you, I remember in 2003, Shane Wilson didn’t want to use Lonestar because it was so old. Now we’re looking at it in 2006 and I’m saying back-to-back weekends.

“It’s old truck No. 1 but it’s got a new body on it and it’s got a Hopkins clip on it and stuff like that but it’s still the same truck that won four races at Texas and I think it won a couple other races, I can’t even remember it’s whole history any more.

“We were just having a meeting and trying to figure out what setup stuff we wanted to change to make us better for this week. We’re going to start very similar to what we had at Kansas and go from there.”

GAUGHAN ON GEORGETOWN TRIBUTE – “This is a great opportunity. A lot of places have sponsored some things like Tennessee, Michigan, Ohio State but all of those were about trying to get some money for the team or trying to get some money through some other things. We’re doing a deal with Georgetown. I graduated from there. The school is a huge part of my life. The football and basketball teams and the athletic programs are a huge part of my life. So I got permission from Georgetown president DeGioia, the athletic director, Mr. Muir and the board of regents said we can run a Georgetown paint scheme. I feel kind of like I’ve let my school down because I haven’t been able to donate money to them yet. I’m almost ten years removed from college and I haven’t donated any money to the school yet. So I figured this is my way of cheating. We’re going to take the winnings from the race and donate them to the Georgetown Alumna House and part of the winnings are going to go to the Woodstock Theological Center. It was a big part of my life when I was at Georgetown. Father Raymond Camp in particular really was a guiding spirit for me and he still is today. He is one of the coolest priests you’ll ever meet. When you talk to him you think no way is he a priest. He’s a great guy and comes to races with me.

“We want to start talking about it now since we’re going to Kentucky. Cincinnati and Louisville are now Big East country and they got a rude awakening in real basketball this last year. We figured we would show up and talk about it a little bit in Kentucky. But when we go to New Hampshire International Speedway and run a full Georgetown truck. It’s going to be really neat and have Jack the Bulldog on it. You’ll hear a bunch more about it as we get closer to it. We’re just gonna go and support the Georgetown football team and the Georgetown basketball team, the women’s sports – all the teams. We may even try to show up to a game and take a show truck with us.”

Listen in on the #77: The team’s primary radio frequency is 451.3371.