Brendan Gaughan Pre-Race Report - Atlanta

Driver: Brendan Gaughan
Owner: Michael Gaughan
Event: John Deere 200
Atlanta Motor Speedway --- Hampton, GA.
Race: Friday, March 17th, 2006 --- 9:15 pm (EST)
Qualifying: Friday, February 24, 2006 – 5:10 pm (EST)
1.54-mile oval, 200 miles/130 laps

Notes of Interest:

The piece: Gaughan will drive Orleans Racing’s T1 truck – aka Lonestar -- for the Atlanta event. Lonestar has undergone a complete overhaul since its last outing last year, including new Hopkins clip, and will be making its first appearance after a top to bottom restoration.

2005 (NCTS) #1 DNQ : #2 start 31st finish 15th: 2004 (NNCS) #1 start 25th finish 33rd: #2 start 25th finish 18th.

Gaughan on AMS:

"I’m really looking forward to Atlanta. We’ve got Lonestar back into the rotation. Rambo would not use Lonestar last year and said to put it in a museum. They sent it down to Hopkins and had the new clips put on it. Rambo believes the wind tunnel numbers on it might be what I’m looking for. He brought it out of what he calls the mothballs and the boys have dusted it off. So Lonestar is going to return at Atlanta Motor Speedway this weekend.”

“I have positive apprehension about it. I love Lonestar and I love the record that it has. When you take it somewhere the Orleans team starts to get back up on the horse pretty good. You’re not quite sure so you kind of sit there and go, ‘Woo, I don’t want to take my baby out.’ You want it to be good and you think it’s going to be good but you never do know until you get there. So I’m optimistically excited.”

“We got a lot done during the off weekends. You can always say the best thing about this sport is next week. We had a bad day in California and lost a motor within 15 laps. It would have been great for Kroyer Engines and the Orleans Racing team to go race the next weekend and prove to everybody that it was no big deal and it was no harm, no foul. But the nice thing about the Craftsman Truck Series is you get a little time to have a life and you get a little bit of time to keep building.”

“We said from the start of the season that we needed some time to build. Now we do have 13 complete trucks in the shop ready to go. We went to the wind tunnel once during this break and we’re going to the wind tunnel again right after Atlanta. So it was nice to have that time. We got a little bit more time to get our guns loaded with more ammunition and see if we can’t keep coming out firing.”

Meet the Crew:

Name
Hometown
Shop Duty
Race Day Duty

Tony Liberati
Bellaire, OH
Crew Chief
Crew Chief

Clint Jennings
Logan, OH
Engineer
Engineer

Lance Wilson
Bakersfield, CA
Front Suspension
Rear Tire Changer

Danny Goad
Martinsville, VA
Mechanic / Tuner
Rear Tire Hanger

Harley Rauch
Fresno, CA
Transmission/Gears
Front Tire Changer

Jacen Johns
Springfield, MO
Mechanic
Front Tire Hanger

Calvin Gravely
Martinsville, VA
Tire Spec / Fabricator
Jack Man

Bill Caldwell
Culver City, CA
Truck Driver
Fuel Man

Steve Fiedler
Yankton, SD
Truck Driver
Catch Can

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