Mission Accomplished At Lowe's For South Point Racing Test

Brendan Gaughan called Thursday and Friday’s test session at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Charlotte a successful two days. But now the South Point Racing the has even more work ahead in preparation for the Quaker Steak & Lube 200 on Friday, May 18.

After testing two Chevrolet Silverados over the course of the two days, Gaughan finished the test session in 6th and 16th place on the board. Although both trucks had drastically different setups – one being a coil bind setup and one being a conventional setup – Gaughan couldn’t say which truck he preferred.

“I think this was an extremely successful test for the South Point Chevrolets,” Gaughan said. “The hardest part for us is now choosing which one we’ll race next week. They were both very, very good trucks.

“We were the best Chevrolet in the last night session. So we know that we have a good Chevrolet. The biggest decision we have now is which one do we use? And That’s up to our engineer, John McQueeen and crew chief Bryan Berry – for them to sit down and say ‘Okay, here’s what we think, Brendan.’”

Gaughan said their decision would determine the No. 77 South Point Chevrolet that would hit the track on Friday for the race.

“Driver normally doesn’t take say in that. If I said that I liked one so much more than the other, okay,” Gaughan said. “But they both were in six-hundreths of each other at their fastest. They both could do over 25 laps and lose less than a tenth, and we’re still within six-hundreths of each other. One can do certain things, and the other can’t. The other can’t do certain thins that the one can’t. So which truck do you choose?

“I think that’s the greatest thing about the partnership that the South Point team has made with Chevrolet and how far this team has come. All our trucks are just as good as the other.”

Although Gaughan was thrilled with testing and his trucks, he did have one incident in the night session on Friday night. Gaughan spun and brushed the yellow walls at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.

“The spin was exactly what I talked about with 17 other drivers,” Gaughan said. “These Goodyear tires – although they are not as awful as last year’s Goodyear tire at Charlotte – they are just a hair underneath it being that awful.

“When you put them on as stickers, everybody is just horrible loose. You can’t put wheel input in to your race truck. You can’t drive the things because they get too loose. And that happened to – I can name a Dodge, a Toyota, a Ford and a Chevrolet. All drivers said the same things – sticker tires are completely loose. We got lucky and spun and didn’t hit anything.”

At the close of testing, Gaughan told his crew that he couldn’t wait to hit the track at Lowe’s for the race next week. Gaughan also took the opportunity to talk about why he wanted to test more.

“I miss testing. It was a fantastic test for us,” Gaughan said. “We learned so much in the last two days. I just wished we could test our Chevys more.”