Gaughan Finishes 14th In Baja 250

Brendan Gaughan called his weekend adventure in the SCORE Baja 250 a success after finishing 14th in the Class 1 division on Saturday afternoon.

“The best thing about this weekend was that we think we may have the transmission fixed,” Gaughan said. “This was the first time we were able to run more than 20 miles in our Kreger Fab Class 1 buggy, so we were able to hunt out a few more bugs, fix those and still finish the race.

“I’ve been saying that this is the fastest buggy I have ever had, and now that we have all the little things fixed, I think we can go out there and prove it.”

Gaughan, who started 18th in his second race of the SCORE season, said that just like any desert race he had millions of stories from his run in the Baja 250.

At one point in the race, Gaughan was battling for the overall lead, which proved to him just how good his buggy could be.

But there were other issues. He experienced an electrical problem – which was diagnosed and fixed – during the course of the race. There was a fire during a fuel stop. And instead of trying to avoid a boobie trap on the course, Gaughan hit it and flattened his left rear tire.

There was even an incident with a spectator car. With dust flying all around him, Gaughan had to drive through one part of the course straight off his GPS – which was fine until they hit something going 30 miles per hour and came to a dead stop.

That something was a spectator vehicle. It broke the lower control arm and the wheel on Gaughan’s buggy.

“Because we had used our spare tire earlier and there were no pit areas where we were we had to limp up a mountain on the course, which cost us about 45 minutes,” Gaughan said. “Thanks to our friends in the desert – the Wilsons – when we got to their pit, they gave us a tire so that we could get back to speed and get back to our own pit and fix the problem.”

For Gaughan, his desert outing was eventful. But more importantly he was able to finish his first SCORE race of the 2007 season.

“It was just tons of fun,” Gaughan said. “The transmission worked beautifully, and I’m really proud of all the work that the people at Xtrac did to get it up to speed and working.

“And we’ve worked out a few other bugs, too. This is the fastest desert buggy I’ve ever had, now that we’ve got everything fixed, I have to get to the finish line first and prove just how good it is.”