Full speed ahead

Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2005 | 9:50 a.m.

Brendan Gaughan sums up his return to the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series in one word: successful.

As he prepared for Saturday night's Las Vegas 350 truck race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Gaughan is 19th in points this season running as a teammate to Steve Park. Although he is not in contention for the series title -- as he was in 2003 -- and has not won a race -- he won six two years ago -- Gaughan said he is pleased with the direction in which his Las Vegas-based Orleans Racing team is heading.

"We got Steve a win this year so the Orleans team has won," Gaughan, a Las Vegas native, said. "We grew a bunch of kids into a second team that has turned out to be quite a second team; they have really come a long way.

"We've gone through a transition (changing crew chiefs) ... so it has been successful when you take all the factors we had to put in of rebuilding this organization."

Still, Gaughan said, he is disappointed that he has not been able to find Victory Lane in his No. 77 Jasper Engines and Transmissions Dodge.

"I'm surprised I haven't won a race -- absolutely," Gaughan said. "I think this team is good enough to win a race. We got Steve a win and I'm surprised we haven't been able to scrape one together, but this Craftsman Truck Series is tough.

"We feel that we're still going to win but it has taken a lot to get us there. I'm actually pretty happy it was this hard; if it would have come easy, it would have felt maybe a little less satisfying. When this win does come -- and it will come -- it'll make everything feel and taste so much better."

That's not to say that Gaughan and the No. 77 team haven't been competitive this season. He has seven top-10 finishes in 17 races and said he would be closer to winning a race if the team would improve in qualifying. Gaughan pointed to last weekend's race, where he fashioned a 10th-place finish at New Hampshire International Speedway despite starting 25th.

"We're scraping together some good finishes here," Gaughan said. "We keep looking like we're going to have good qualifying runs ... we just don't qualify (well) and then you're playing catch-up, like Saturday when I passed 15 trucks to get to 10th.

"We've got a smart team, our pit stops have been rockin', we've got all the things that we need to do, we just need to qualify better so I'm not playing catch-up."

Looking ahead to Saturday night's race, Gaughan said he is hoping to recapture a little of the magic he and his team conjured up two years ago at his home track. Gaughan earned the pole for the 2003 Las Vegas 350 and led 106 of the 146 laps before a partisan crowd in excess of 60,000. Gaughan still calls that race the highlight of his career.

"We don't need to talk about what Vegas means to our family," said Gaughan, a third-generation Las Vegan. "(That race) was flat-out amazing and I'll never forget that as long as I live. That feeling ranks right up there with many other memories in my head, but I don't think any of them quite stir that much (emotion).

"Winning that race, looking in the crowd, knowing that people were still trying to get into the track that year ... I don't know if it was that they gave away tickets and people showed up or what, but I like to think some of them showed up (to support us).

"With any luck, we can have a similar turnout because that was cool. With any luck, they'll keep that going now that they remember that the Vegas team has two teams out there now and we're pretty darn strong right now. I'd love to see us come through there with 80,000-plus for a Craftsman Truck race at Vegas and do the same thing we did (in 2003)."

A breakdown of Brendan Gaughan's season on the Truck series: