Gaughan Collected In First Lap Melee At Dover

Brendan Gaughan and the South Point Racing team’s day ended much too early at Dover International Speedway on Friday afternoon in the AAA Insurance 200.

With a fifth-place starting position and a solid Chevrolet Silverado underneath him, Gaughan was confident at the start of the race. However, his excitement for what he called one of the best race trucks he has had at Dover quickly faded.

Just after the green flag, the leaders who were just ahead of Gaughan tangled on the backstretch which resulted in a multi-truck accident. As Gaughan tried to go low to avoid the wreck, he was hit from behind and in the side – and the chain reaction caused him to run into yet another truck.

A dejected Gaughan radioed his crew following the incident: “I’m fine – but we have a destroyed race truck on lap one.”

Gaughan drove his race truck into the garage and made an attempt to rid the truck of the damaged sheet metal. But upon further inspection, the team found that the truck had a too much chassis damage. The truck was hurt beyond repair and a disappointed team finished 36th.

"My South Point Chevrolet race team just can't catch a break,” Gaughan said. “We have had such great trucks the last few weeks in a row and whether we have small engine issues, coil bind issues or wrong place wrong time issues, we just can't catch a break.

“We had Georgetown on the side of our truck this weekend, trying to donate some money back to the school and have NASCAR do it for me. Those guys on the front row decided to be knuckleheads right off the start and beat and bang on each other on the first lap. I mean, I believe I was told for years, in order to finish first, you first have to finish. I would just like a chance to get a run at it past turn one.

“These South Point Racing guys gave me a great truck today, and I think that we would have been a contender at the end. Now, we’ll just have to go to Texas with the same determination that we came here with and prove to everyone what this race team is made of.”