Columnist Brian Hilderbrand: Gaughan’s pit crew shows toughness in win

Tuesday, July 22, 2003 | 10:31 a.m.

Brian Hilderbrand covers motor sports for the Las Vegas Sun. His motor sports notebook appears Friday. He can be reached at bh@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4089.

Brendan Gaughan insists his Orleans Racing crew is the best in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.

Now he knows it's also among the toughest.

En route to his series-leading third victory Saturday night at Gateway International Raceway, Gaughan watched helplessly as his front tire carrier, Jesse Sanders, was struck on pit road by another competitor's truck during a pit stop. Sanders, who was not seriously injured, jumped right up, completed the pit stop and got Gaughan back on the track.

"Jesse got demolished right in front of my eyes," Gaughan said. "He got hit, the tire flew out of his hand and (he) landed on my hood; I thought he was down. But he jumped up like he didn't even notice it, grabbed the tire and Harley (Rauch), the tire changer, who is waiting for his tire, didn't even know (Sanders) got hit -- that's how focused my guys are right now.

"We came in second that stop and went out fourth. The guys that beat us were a guy that took gas only and two guys that took two tires -- and we still beat everybody out with my guy getting drilled."

Gaughan said Sanders was bruised and sore, but had no broken bones because of the incident.

"He got hit at a good 35 to 40 miles an hour and he acted like it didn't even faze him," Gaughan said. "He's sore, he's beat up, but he'll be at Michigan this weekend. When you win, it tends to make all those things feel a little bit better."

Gaughan moved from fourth to second in the NCTS standings with the victory and trails series leader Travis Kvapil by 34 points heading into Saturday's race at Michigan International Speedway.

"It's an honor to be part of this special promotion between Action Performance, Memphis Motorsports Park and Universal Studios," Busch said. "Memphis wasn't originally on my schedule to run this year but I'm glad I was chosen to carry a special paint scheme because it gives me another opportunity to race in the Busch Series and gain more seat time."

The car will be replicated in die-cast form by Action Performance and is available at the nascar.com online store.

Bodine will partner with driver Darren Law in the Bully Hill Vineyards 250 on Aug. 8. In his first outing with the G&W Motorsports team, Bodine, Law and Andy Lally finished fourth in class at the Six Hours of the Glen at WGI.

Spectator gates open at 6 p.m., qualifying begins at 6:20 and racing gets under way at 7:15. Fans who bring a ticket stub from the July 3 "Night of Fire" at The Bullring can purchase two tickets for the price of one for Saturday's show.