Columnist Brian Hilderbrand: Gaughan calls renovated Miami track ‘awesome’

Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2003 | 10:02 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.

International Speedway Corp. invested an estimated $10 million in renovating Homestead-Miami from a relatively flat track into one with an innovative variable-degree banking system.

As far as Brendan Gaughan is concerned, it was money well spent.

Gaughan, the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series points leader and a Las Vegas native, could not contain his enthusiasm after a daylong test session Monday afternoon on the reconfigured 1.5-mile oval.

"This place is awesome," Gaughan said. "They did one hell of a job at this place. This is no exaggeration: it's a four-groove racetrack. It's like Michigan, where you can enter (the corners) low, you can enter high, you can enter in the middle.

"This place -- right now -- is so awesome and it's only going to get better when more (tire) rubber gets put down. The more rubber, the more time that gets put on it, the faster it's going to get; the better it's going to get. I heard from an engineer today who said -- in the corners -- our corner speed is as fast as Atlanta. This place is just wicked fast."

Gaughan, who leads a close four-driver battle for the NCTS championship going into Friday's season finale, said he is even more confident about his chances of winning the title now that he has tested at Homestead. Gaughan holds a 26-point lead over Ted Musgrave while Travis Kvapil and Dennis Setzer are within 39 points of the lead with one race remaining.

"We're probably one of the quickest out here and I'm driving the truck that won Michigan and Vegas," Gaughan said. "We're feeling pretty good; we know we're strong and we proved again to ourselves today that we are a strong speedway team.

"Everybody makes a big deal of this pressure thing ... but (the drivers chasing me) have all the pressure. Somebody asked me if this was like the NCAA tournament -- is this the equivalent of being down by two points with the last shot. I said no, it's the equivalent of being in the Big East tournament championship game, I'm up by three and I've got the ball with 10 seconds left."

The Gaughan brothers, Rick Lance and Bill Holbrook finished second in Class 10, 4 minutes behind class winner Bill Witt. Holbrook also serves as Gaughan's spotter in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.

"We didn't have a chance to win the (Winston West) championship this year due to some small hiccups in my career and my life," Cameron said of the win. "But this is the best championship I could have won this year. We're back and we're here to stay.

"To be in the situation I've been in all year -- basically fighting for my life -- and come here and win the biggest race of the year, it's everything I could have wanted."

Cameron, 26, won twice in the final five races of the Winston West season and qualified for the final spot among Winston West drivers in Saturday's invitation-only race. Cameron still is undergoing chemotherapy for an inoperable form of non-Hodgkins lymphoma.

Las Vegas resident Scott Lynch, the 2003 Winston West champion, retired 24 laps into the 125-lap race and finished 28th in the 30-car field. Ron Breese Jr., of DeKalb, Ill., won the 100-lap race for drivers in the NASCAR Elite Division.

Busch will attempt to qualify for his first NASCAR Winston Cup race this weekend in Homestead, Fla.