Gaughan surrenders truck series points lead

Thursday, Aug. 21, 2003 | 9:09 a.m.

Brendan Gaughan of Las Vegas came out of Wednesday night's NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway with a fourth-place finish and an intact truck, but lost the series points lead to Travis Kvapil.

Gaughan held a seven-point lead going into the race but Kvapil inherited the victory when race leader Kevin Harvick's truck blew a right-front tire and crashed two laps from the finish. Kvapil now holds an eight-point edge over Gaughan with nine races remaining.

Although Gaughan remained in the championship battle, he was upset over his fourth-place finish.

"We should have won this thing," Gaughan said. "We were the fastest truck and we let another one slip away and a lot of it was my fault.

"We're eight points behind now and that's no big deal. We'll be all right."

Gaughan was running fourth when Harvick crashed but was he was passed by Rick Crawford for third place as Gaughan slowed to avoid a potential pile-up.

"I'm really mad at myself for that last lap," Gaughan said. "On the last lap, I end up giving away a position because I lifted. That was really dumb and it was nobody's fault but my own. My spotter was telling me to go and I just lifted ... I'm so mad at myself right now it's unbelievable."

Robert Pressley took second and Crawford was third. Dennis Setzer rounded out the top five.

Ted Musgrave, who trailed Gaughan by 21 points going into the race, started from the pole but finished 15th. Musgrave remained third in the NCTS standings but now is 71 points out of first place.

Another Las Vegas native, Casey Kingsland, was to have attempted to qualify for Wednesday's race in a truck fielded by MLB Motorsports. Kingsland, 18, said he has parted ways with MLB and will attempt to qualify for the next Truck Series race, Sept. 4 in at Richmond International Raceway, in a truck fielded by Pro Motion Motorsports.