Gaughan's fourth-place finish was his career best on the NASCAR NEXTEL circuit. He was also the top finishing Raybestos Rookie of the Race for the second straight race.

"It was awesome. The Kodak guys have been working hard, and the Penske guys as a group has built their first ever superspeedway specific team. The guys in the back of the No. 77 Jasper shop have been building superspeedway Dodges for the team, and it's the first time the Penske group has ever done something like that. It's paid off with a fourth-place finish. We went to the front a couple of times and went to the back a couple of times. We had a good race car. The Kodak Dodge was good, but it never stayed up there. I'm not smart enough to try to team up with Junior to try to stay up there. I was just trying to fight for myself. In the end, we just rolled the dice. Shane (crew chief Wilson) and Doug Bawel, the owner of Jasper, both came on the radio and said 'we're not going to make it.' I came on and said, 'I don't care.' We're not racing for the championship. We're 30th in points or whatever. We have nothing to lose but to try to go for it and put it in fourth gear and try to conserve fuel under caution. It worked. We ended up fourth and led a couple of laps. I tried to block Kevin (Harvick), but I missed and then just held on and tried to get back in the draft before they all passed me."