Brendan Gaughan Pre-Race Report - Talladega

Driver: Brendan Gaughan
Owner: Michael Gaughan
John Deere 250
Talladega Superspeedway
Race: Saturday, October 7 – 2:15 pm
Qualifying: Friday, October 6 – 11:15 am
2.66-mile oval, 250 miles/ 94 laps
 
Notes of Interest:While this is the first ever visit to Talladega Superspeedway for the Craftsman Trucks it’s not the first time that driver, Brendan Gaughan has run the vast 2.66-mile race track. In fact Talladega is the venue where Gaughan posted his best ever Cup effort, a 4th place finish in 2004.

Military Appreciation Program (MAP): This week Orleans Racing will carry the colors of the 57th Maintenance Operations Squadron to Talladega. This unit has roots going back several decades, to 1943, and is based at Nellis Air Force base (Las Vegas, NV).

The 57th MOS supports the maintenance effort for more than 148 assigned A-10A, F-15C/D, F-15E, F-16C/D, F-22A, RQ-1 and MQ-1 aircraft by managing weapons standardization, quality assurance and maintenance training for more than 2,200 technicians. It manages fleet health and group-level programs and resources to include financial, manpower, vehicles, computers, wing environmental and facilities for the Nellis Maintenance Complex.

The Piece: Gaughan will drive Orleans Racing’s T16
 
The Stats:

Talladega Superspeedway - Cup Series
Date	Start	Finish	LC/TL	Status	Winnings
25-Apr-04	20	13	188/188	Running	$89,015
3-Oct-04	26	4 *	188/188	Running	$100,640
* Career Best Cup Series Finish

GAUGHAN ON TALLADEGA SUPERSPEEDWAY: “The repaving part is going to be neat. Talladega used to have big, long, bumpy, bumpy straightaways. They’re saying now that it’s smooth as glass. So I’m really excited to see that. Fortunately or unfortunately that doesn’t affect your handling at Talladega at all. It’s just big, fast and mean.

“We have two really good trucks going there. T-19 is a brand new truck that we just took to the wind tunnel and T-16 is the truck that ran so well at Daytona but got dinged up right at the end. One’s brand new and the other is rebuilt. We’re actually going to use T-16 because after looking at the wind tunnel numbers we think it’s going to be the better race truck. So even with all that intelligence that went into the brand new body, we’re going with the old body.

“We’re excited about the race. It’s the first time for the Craftsman Truck Series at Talladega. I know it isn’t going to be the last because I know the fans are going to see a phenomenal race.

“When I raced at Talladega in the Nextel Cup Series I got my career best finish and I had Buddy Baker as my coach. Buddy was the coaching master at Daytona and Talladega. In the truck the air is just so much more packed and so different. At Daytona there are times when you’ll be pointing in a straight line and a truck will come up underneath you and move you an entire truck length up the race track and you haven’t moved the steering wheel. We just push that much more air. It ends up being a little bit more of an out of control situation than even the Nextel Cup cars. That’s also what makes it so fun.

“We’ll stay in a big pack and it’s old school racing at Daytona and Talladega with the slingshot move. We can’t bump draft because the way our bumpers are but we do a whole lot more slingshotting. It’s going to be exciting.

“They call it a ‘White Knuckle Weekend’ and it’s very aptly named. Not in a bad sense though. It’s just another style of racing. Some people don’t like that style and some people do. I don’t really say, ‘Woo-hoo! Love that racing’ but I’m good at it and I say, ‘Hey, let’s go racing.’ It’s just different.

“You definitely are holding on. You hold your breath a few times. You know when you’re four-wide. If you’re the third guy in line you look below you and you know there are two guys inside and one guy outside. You take a deep breath and think, ‘Oooh, I don’t want to be here.’ But the Craftsman Truck Series has some great drivers and we’ll get through it.

“Some people say there’s a secret to driving the superspeedways. I don’t know. I know that when I raced in the Nextel Cup Series for some strange reason my Kodak Dodge liked the middle. It was really fast right through the middle and that sucked to be in the middle three- wide all day. But it was fast. That’s how I got back to the front and how I stayed up front. So I don’t know if there’s a secret or if anybody knows any more or less. Everybody likes to say they can see air or they can do this or that. I don’t know. All I know is you drive your tail off and you do it differently than at any other place. At the end of the day you take that grip off the steering wheel and you’ve got a little shake in your hands and you say, ‘We made it!’”

Meet the Crew:

Name	Hometown	Shop Duty	Race Day Duty
Tony Liberati	Bellaire, OH	Crew Chief	Crew Chief
Bryan Berry	Homestead, FL	Truck Chief	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
Robert Ewing	Las Vegas, NV	Fabricator	Front Tire Changer

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