Life is so good for Brendan Gaughan that it sometimes renders him speechless.
“This is, this is …” with his voice trailing off before he even gets started.
It’s two hours before qualifying at Darlington Raceway and suddenly Gaughan is searching for words and reflecting. In the comforts of his hauler drinking coffee, amongst trays of food and a large stack of hero cards he’s autographing, the Richard Childress Racing driver recalls the journey that’s brought him to this point.
It was fun at Rusty Wallace Racing, but the meter wasn’t pegged as they worked to be more competitive. Longing to be affiliated with a team like Childress but instead left to buy whatever those companies were willing to give them. Making the most with what they had, often looking to overachieve.
He’s forever grateful for what Wallace did for him, however. The same goes for Circle Bar Racing, where Gaughan ran after what he called the most difficult time in his life. Rick Crawford and the Mitchell family’s thoughtfulness will never be forgotten.
“I can’t say I haven’t had times that there’s been great things and great people along the way, but as far as performance goes and life in general and racing goes, there is absolutely no doubt this is the most fun I’ve had since the early days of the team we owned. Winning Winston West races, winning Truck races and competing for championships,” Gaughan said.
“This is the most relaxed, easiest it’s been to laugh and give these interviews and say we’re good. When I said those things with the truck team and later in my career, you were saying them and knew you had absolutely zero shot in hell because you’re stuff was not capable.”
Things are much simpler and happier now. Gone are the days when he ran the Truck Series and had no backup truck for 13 races. Competing in a situation like that is practically non-existent as Gaughan couldn’t even go out in practice and push hard because getting in trouble meant the end of the weekend. A Darlington stripe would have been more like a kiss of death.
“Anytime you have situations like that, you’re not having much fun but I would smile and say good things and didn’t let that be known, but on the inside it was tough,” Gaughan acknowledged. “This is honestly the easiest it’s been to be relaxed, to have fun and enjoy my life again, racing wise because of what Richard gives us, what Richard does for me, what this team gives you. We’re one of the premier Chevrolet teams in the sport, I don’t have to say we don’t have the engineering, I can’t say we don’t have the pieces or the parts, we have the best of everything.”
Welcome to a career rebirth for the 39-year-old Las Vegas driver. Since his pairing with Richard Childress in 2012 when he ran 10 Nationwide and eight Truck races, stability and competitiveness that were once so far away, now enveloped him. In turn, Gaughan went from a driver fading into oblivion to knocking on the door to victory lane.
Last year in a full CWTS season with Childress he finished seventh in points. While winless – although Gaughan admitted a few chances slipped away – those days made everyone stronger. And began a resurgence.
“Last year, start of the year with Shane (Wilson, crew chief), with a new bunch of guys, we kind of made a team and we had high expectations but the problem is a lot of this sport is attitude and I still feel like I’m a great racecar driver but some days it’s tough to remember that when you’re not running well,” said Gaughan. “It took part of the year to kind of remember that hey, I am that good at this stuff and then I finally got some of that killer attitude back near the end of the year. We didn’t win, but we finished second at bunch at the end of the year, we had chances to win three or four races last year.”
The team Gaughan ran with last year is still intact for 2014, moving from Trucks to Nationwide and attempting to pick up where they left off. That factor, along with Gaughan’s past experience driving the style of car now being run, doesn’t mean there’s much he’s had to adapt to.
“Really there’s not much, especially when you take in the fact I still have Shane Wilson with me this year, who’s kind of my comfort zone and the same team basically from last year,” Gaughan said of being back in the NNS full-time since 2010. “The transition has really been nothing. The only thing that has bummed me out is how many points I’ve given up this year with stupid speeding penalties and minor parts failures that have just been killing us. We’ve given away probably 25 points from just stupid things.”
It’s easy to get caught up in Gaughan’s own excitement. Now a days a simple interview becomes a bit of a workout in trying to keep up with the already fast pace driver. His excitement is palpable, the now permanent smile, contagious. The pitch in his voice varies depending on the topic and Gaughan will even speak with his hands as he tries to pantomime events with extra emphasis.
Like speeding. The pitch in Gaughan’s voice got real high as he described his first penalty in Phoenix. He knew it was going to be close and told the team over the radio. Afterward, Childress and other officials came up and said they were going to fix the tachs and that something must have been wrong.
“I said, ‘fix what? I sped!’ I knew where I sped, I knew what I did, it was my own fault,” Gaughan said. A second speeding penalty followed in Vegas as the team did try something different. Those along with a broken clutch in California and a chain breaking in Texas has the South Point fighting from behind all too often.
But Gaughan has been here before; he knows that’s part of the sport. Coming into the year, with the experience of 84 races under his belt and driving for an organization found at the front winning races, his team expects no different.
“We came in knowing this is the year I’m going to get back and win some races again, and we’re going to be up front and we have been all year. We’ve been a sixth, seventh, eighth place all year – didn’t finish there because some of my mistakes and we’ve had two 99 cent part failures – which is kind of just part of the sport,” he said. “It still sucks. I’ve gotten two speeding penalties, and I haven’t got a speeding penalty in seven years. All of a sudden I’m pushing harder, I’m trying harder, and I’ve missed a few things. Those suck but the expectations come in as high as they are whether you’re on any of the Richard Childress teams. You come in expecting to win races and compete for a championship.”
The No. 62 team right now is a top-10 team, according to Gaughan. They’re working on finding speed, eliminating mistakes and failures in order to get to a consistent top-five team where they can start competing for wins. Last Friday night he was fighting for a top 10 spot when he crashed off turn four in Darlington on the last lap. Instead, finishing 22nd and dropped to seventh in points.
Nevertheless Gaughan has found himself a home and stability. Moving through the ranks with Childress, however, doesn’t mean he’s eying a return to the big leagues. The ride Gaughan has been on is good enough and whatever it goes, as long as it’s with Childress, couldn’t be better.
“I told Richard this is the last team I’m going to drive for,” Gaughan revealed, while looking down at the South Point casino on the hero card, looking at what could be his future. “I know this is the best team I’ve ever been on so for me I told Richard it’s either here or this place (Vegas). This is what I want to do, this is what I started in 2012, since I started running here. That’s what I came here for, I’ve told Richard when he asked me to do Trucks in 2013, I said whatever series you want. South Point has X amount of sponsorship, he knows what it is, he has X amount of sponsors he puts on the racecars and whatever series he wants me in is where I want to be.
“If he wants me to run Sprint Cup, as long as we have the sponsorship for it I’m more than happy to do it for him. I am not sitting here caring about that anymore in my life, I want to win races, I want to be up front and whatever series that entails as long as it helps Richard Childress Racing and helps what he wants, I’m here to do it. And the day I can’t compete up front and the day I can’t keep his stuff in the top-10, top five every week, is the day I look at him and say, ‘thank you sir, I appreciate the opportunity.’ And back to Vegas.”
Except with how well off Brendan Gaughan has found himself the last few years, that has become a far off possibility.