Brendan Gaughan Pre-Race Report - Memphis

Driver: Brendan Gaughan
Owner: Michael Gaughan
O’Reilly 200
Memphis Motorsports Park
Race: Saturday, July 15 – 8:15 pm
Qualifying: Saturday, July 15 – 5:00 pm
0.75-mile oval, 150 miles/ 200 laps
 
Notes of Interest: With a pair of consecutive top-fives in their back pocket the Orleans Racing team heads to the Memphis Motorsports Park on a roll. Fueling the optimism is that Memphis showed Brendan Gaughan and crew its best finish of the 2005 season (3rd).

 

Memphis is also a welcome stop on the 25-race schedule as it gives the Orleans Racing crew the opportunity to enjoy the local flavor the town has to offer. Highlighting this stop will be a private tour of Graceland, which will be followed by a night on Beale Street.
 
Military Appreciation Program (MAP):

 

720TH SPECIAL TACTICS GROUP

 

Mission:

 

The 720th Special Tactics Group is an integral part of the Air Force Special Operations Command and is home-based at Hurlburt Field, Fla. The group is comprised of more than 800 Special Operations Combat Control, Pararescue, Combat Weather and support personnel.

The 720th STG organizes, trains and equips Special Tactics forces worldwide to provide airmanship expertise and establish and control the air-to-ground interface in an objective area.

It also provides long-range operational and logistics planning, and deploys command and control elements during special tactics force employment or deployment. Lastly, it functions as the command's proponent for military parachuting, diving and other special tactics-related matters.
 
Squadrons within the 720th STG are composed of Air Force Combat Controllers, Pararescuemen and Combat Weathermen. Combat Controllers and Pararescuemen are specifically organized, trained and equipped to control aviation assets and provide search and rescue, trauma care and evacuation staging of the wounded. Combat Weathermen support the Army Special Forces Groups, the 75th Ranger Regiment, and the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment by generating accurate, mission tailored forecasts for ingress, employment, and egress of air, land and sea forces, and conduct special weather reconnaissance.
 
More on the 720 STG can be found at:

http://www2.afsoc.af.mil/library/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=223
 
The piece: Gaughan will drive Orleans Racing’s T-6
 
The Stats:

 

Memphis Motorsports Park
Date	Start	Finish	LC/TL	Status	Winnings
22-Jun-02	11	13	200/200	Running	$11,815
21-Jun-03	11	8	200/200	Running	$11,400
23-Jul-05	23	3	202/202	Running	$24,150

 

GAUGHAN ON MEMPHIS: “It’s nice to finally have a couple good weeks in a row. Somebody told me that it’s been back to 2003 since we had back-to-back top five finishes. Of course, that makes the mood lighter in the shop. At the same time it puts a little pressure on the boys. Now we’re finally starting to build Dodges that are getting to the front and everybody knows it so they expect it now.

 

“We go to Memphis and that was the site of our season best finish last. We want to go there and be as effective as we were last year. We’ll show up with a solid Dodge. We went to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway Bullring and tested it. All the boys in the shop have been working while we were gone. It (T6) was ready when we came back from Kentucky and we went right to the bullring to test it because it was ready to go. It’s nice to have a shop that can function that well and get things done when Rambo and the road crew are out of town.

 

“We’ve got Lonestar back into shape. We’ve already got the nose fixed on that so we can go to our Chicago test with Dodge next week. We have two really good trucks for Memphis. So our backups are now just as good as our primary trucks.

 

“Memphis is Orleans Racing’s party town. Everybody else talks about Las Vegas and likes to come into Las Vegas early. Well that’s home for us so it’s not as much of a party. Memphis is the town that we choose to try to go to early and spend the night on Beale Street. The guys at Memphis Motorsports Park have a cool little tour set up for us at Graceland. So we’re going to have a private tour of Graceland for the team. We’re from Vegas the home of the Elvis impersonator so we’re going to go to the real home of Elvis.

 

“Heat is always a concern and that’s why Memphis is nice because they put up lights. The biggest concern is for the fans. If we raced this race in the afternoon they’d be passing out in the grandstands. From a driver’s standpoint, it’s just racing. The hotter the better because I think other people aren’t as tough as the guys on the Orleans Racing team. The hotter it is the worse they will perform and the better we’ll perform.
So I feel great around the heat.”

 

Meet the Crew:

Name	Hometown	Shop Duty	Race Day Duty
Tony Liberati	Bellaire, OH	Crew Chief	Crew Chief
Dana Stahl	Las Vegas, NV	Fabricator	Truck Chief
Danny Goad	Martinsville, VA	Mechanic / Tuner	Rear Tire Changer
Clint Jennings	Logan, OH	Engineer	Rear Tire Hanger
Jacen Johns	Springfield, MO	Mechanic	Front Tire Hanger
Calvin Gravely	Martinsville, VA	Tire Spec / Fabricator	Jack Man
Bill Caldwell	Culver City, CA	DOT	Fuel Man
Steve Fiedler	Yankton, SD	Truck Driver	Catch Can
Pinky White	Bakersfield, CA		Front Tire Changer

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