Las Vegan Gaughan comes within two laps of his goal

Monday, Nov. 9, 1998 | 10:53 a.m.

Brendan Gaughan was two laps away from accomplishing two of the goals he had set for himself prior to the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Sam's Town 250 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Then the Las Vegas native found his Orleans Hotel and Casino Chevrolet pasted against the turn-two wall.

"I wanted to be in the top 15 and finish the race without hitting the wall and I was two laps away," Gaughan said. "You can't get much closer than that."

Actually, Gaughan was running 16th at the time of his accident but was closing on the 15th-place truck when he spun and hit the wall, severely damaging his Walker Evans-owned truck.

"I guess I just lost it," Gaughan said. "It just took off pretty quick. I had just passed somebody and everything was going great and it just jumped out from underneath me real quick and I don't know what happened."

Gaughan finished 32nd in the 40-truck field and earned $12,150 in only his third NCTS start.

"The team did a great job of giving us a chance to run fast," Gaughan said. "We had good pit stops and we made changes all the way through the race.

"That last bit of the race, we were running right there with all the (leaders) but I didn't want to get in the way. I was trying to let Jack (Sprague) and Ron (Hornaday) get by me and run behind them, but I was running just as fast."

Despite the premature end to his day, Gaughan said he felt he accomplished one of his goals in Sunday's race.

"At least I showed that I can run right next to them and I wasn't dangerous in the way I ran," he said. "I ran low and stayed out of the way and let the big guys go by and I was faster than some of them.

"I think we showed that at least we're competent and for only my third truck race, hopefully they'll know that as I get better they'll start moving up up there a little more with me."

Gaughan, who finished fifth in Saturday night's NASCAR Winston West Series Sam's Town 125, next will compete in the NASCAR Winston Cup exhibition race in Japan later this month. Next year, he plans to run a full Winston West schedule and five selected NCTS races.

Biffle's good news

Despite bearing the brunt of Jack Sprague's wrath following their last-lap incident Sunday, Greg Biffle had reason to smile following his fifth-place finish in the Sam's Town 250.

Biffle's finish allowed him to clinch the Cintas Rookie of the Year championship by 10 points over Andy Houston. Biffle held a 1-point lead over Houston going into the race.

"It has been a great battle between Andy and I," Biffle said, "We both have great teams. We have come up just a bit short of winning a couple of times this year but we have a great team and we look forward to going back next year to all the race tracks we know better now."

Biffle, who led three times Sunday for 61 laps, had six top-five finishes prior to Sunday's race, with a career-best second (to Houston) at New Hampshire in August.

The rookie of the year points system in the NCTS is not based solely on a driver's on-track performance. A special panel of NASCAR officials can award a driver up to 10 points in three categories: relationship with NASCAR officials in the garage area, relationship with competitors on the track and relationship with the news media.

Jack's wild

Jack Sprague has won two of the three NCTS races held at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and clinched the 1997 championship at this track.

But the Michigan native apparently doesn't spend all of his time at the track when he comes to Las Vegas. Sprague said he hoped his run of bad luck at the tables would translate into good luck at the track -- in the form of a second series championship.

"I like this (track), it's one of my favorite race tracks to race on," Sprague said. "When I come to Las Vegas, I support the town rather well while I'm here.

"I thought with all the bad luck I has having (gambling), I was saving (my good luck) for tonight. I guess we're pretty lucky that we won the race, but..."

But he would much rather have won the championship.

Roper's charge put on ice

Tony Roper, driver of the No. 55 Icehouse Beer Ford, made one of the strongest charges in the field Sunday before his day ended after 88 laps due to mechanical problems.

Roper, who started 30th on the grid, climbed to 10th place by lap 63. Shortly after climbing into the top 10, however, Roper's truck began to lose power because of a faulty valve lifter. He finished 38th.

"We were having a great afternoon," Roper said. "We got all the way to 10th and we did that under green so it was an awful good race truck. We had a top-five truck today, it just didn't happen."