Rookie Gaughan gets first win, Dodge Notes & Quotes

Saturday, June 7, 2002                          			
Texas Motor Speedway - Ft. Worth, Texas     		
NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series				
O'Reilly 400

BRENDAN GAUGHAN (No. 62 NAPA Auto Parts Dodge Ram)
NOTE: This is Gaughan's first NCTS victory in his rookie season and 24th career start.  His previous best finish was a second-place run at Texas last year.  The win is the fourth win for Dodge this year, and second victory at Texas.

"The NAPA Dodge Ram was strong tonight.  That was the main reason why we switched to Dodge Motorsports is the fact that you get wind tunnel time and you get engineering help.  The only advantage that Dodge Motorsports has is the people who are taking care of their teams.  I just found out that we are the first winner in Dodge's 'Run with the Ram' program.  We're the first Dodge team to win that's not a full-factory backed team.  So, I'm honored.  I'm privileged.

"I do want to say one thing.  There's one man who's really special in this deal.  His name is Tom Mount.  Tom is the guy that dug our truck bodies for us.  He goes to the wind tunnel for us when we get our wind tunnel time from Dodge.  Without what Tom did with this truck, we wouldn't be anywhere near here.  This was the most balanced racetrack you could ever ask for.

"We were hoping this would come earlier.  The Orleans team is the only team based out on the west coast with the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.  We knew we'd be strong.  It just took us a little time to get going.  We had zero Dodge Rams in our NAPA shop on January third of this year.  Now we have seven of them.  The guys have been worked really hard.  NAPA Auto Parts made a very bold statement to me when we signed this deal to do the trucks.  NAPA left in '99 as champions, and they wanted to come back as nothing less.  We're not anywhere near the top of the points yet, but we've got one win and hopefully this is our push toward the front.

"The guys have been working hard, and we've had some little things going wrong.  We had a run at Darlington go south, with an air gun breaking and not getting our tire tight.  We had a great run going at Martinsville.  We still finished ninth, but the driver made a huge mistake and cost us a bunch of stops.  St. Louis is the only track that we really didn't have something there for it, but all the other races we sort of gave it away.  At Pikes Peak we had a truck that probably could've won it, and again the driver made a big, big mistake and hurt the truck pretty bad. 

"Everybody might have thought that this is about where we'd be, but myself and (crew chief) Shane Wilson and (engine builder) Kevin Kroyer, we felt that we hadn't come to our potential yet.  Coming to Texas we thought this was going to be a really legitimate chance for us, and it turned out to be true.

"Everybody had made fun of me in the past for being a very non-technical driver.  I don't know what a lot of springs do.  I don't know what a long of things do to the chassis to change the truck.  I know what I feel in my butt, and I tell Shane that I trust him with whatever he wants to do.  Shane made the call that two tires would be fine.  We were really loose early in runs and full of fuel.  It was pretty scary loose, actually.  But two tires didn't bother me.  That was Shane's call. Whatever he wants is what I do, and it worked out for us in the end.  We were great on long runs, and that's what we set the truck up for.  

"Kevin Kroyer has built every motor I've ever raced since I was 15 years old.  He's like family to me.  Kevin came in on the radio near the end and said, 'Don't even worry about conserving fuel, you're fine.'  Once again, I'm not a technical guy.  If Kevin says don't conserve, I don't conserve.

"Being part of the Georgetown family is very special.  As a matter of fact, last weekend in Dover the head coach of the Hoyas, coach Craig Esherick, and one of the assistant coaches, Ed Spriggs, were out there at the race for me.  I was honored to have them there, it really meant a lot to me.  This year, I know that I'll get a couple of players to show up to some races for me now that the NBA season is over, and I can't wait to have them show up.

BILL LESTER (No. 8 Dodge Motorsports Dodge Ram)
"The No. 8 Dodge Motorsports Dodge Ram just keeps knocking on the door.  We've got to be pretty satisfied with an 11th place finish.  I'm probably happier with the save I had to make in turn one.  The No. 2 truck had me wicked loose, and I did all I could to hang on to it.  I thank the man upstairs for giving me the fortitude and skills to do it.  It was a handful out there tonight.  I was really wishing I could get by the No. 90 truck at the end there to break into the top-10.  We just got a little too aero-tight coming off the corners.   I could get up to him but I just couldn't get the run off the corner that it took to get by him.  But overall I'm happy with the truck the guys gave me.  We were fast right off the truck.  We qualified pretty well, even though we didn't catch the break we needed with the clouds that rolled over the track.  But the most important thing is the finish.  We wanted that top-10, but 11th is as close as you can get to it.  So, I think we've got a lot of confidence to continue to build on for the next race at Memphis.

ROBERT PRESSLEY (No. 18 Bobby Hamilton Racing Dodge Ram)
"We were just real, real tight.  We've been tight since we got here, so we're lucky to have salvaged that kind of finish.  We got out there and got us a couple of bonus points, so that helped us a whole lot.  But man, I'm just so glad to see team Dodge win.  I mean, if we can't do it we want to see a Dodge win.

"On that restart I was just so tight that I could get up there and get some guys loose there for about six laps.  What I needed was a caution with about 15 laps to go."

TED MUSGRAVE (No. 1 Mopar Performance Parts Dodge Ram)
"There was no passing tonight.  They changed the rules here, putting that big 'ol spoiler on us.  What happens then is when a truck gets behind another truck you lose so much front down force that you can't make a pass on anyone, the truck just pushes so bad.  That's the way the Mopar Dodge was.  I got behind Crawford, and I started pushing.  I had to back up, and take another run.  Then as soon as I got some air under the front of the nose, like if he got away from me a little bit, I could run right back up and I could be two or three-tenths quicker.  But with the aero package we've got right now the front end of the truck just never stuck.  It just never turned in the corner and you'd have to get out the throttle and you'd lose your momentum.  

"The key this time was just being in the front.  Just like Brendan was.  He got the front-row deal right there at the end, and as soon as he got air under the front of his truck he was gone.  I believe our truck would have done the same, but it just didn't get there.  

"There's just never been a second groove here at Texas.  It's a shame.  It's a nice racetrack and everything.  The thing is, at a track like Atlanta that second groove came in, and a third groove.  But at this one a second groove never came in to take affect."

JASON LEFFLER (No. 2 Team ASE/CARQUEST Dodge Ram)
"The Team ASE/CARQUEST Dodge Ram was pretty good, but the No. 8 just got loose and slid up the track.  That's the way it goes.  It was one of those racing deals.  I was behind the No. 8 and he was a lap down, but blocking like crazy.  Finally, he lost it all by himself.  So what are you going to do?

LANCE HOOPER (No.  Diamond Cut Jeans/Blair5.com Dodge Ram)
"We had a great truck in the corner, and we were running seventh there when we dropped a cylinder or two.  For the last 60 laps we were just trying to baby the motor and hold on.   We ended up in the top-15, but we had a good, top-10 truck.  I just hate it for the team."

BRIAN ROSE (No. 4 Perry Connection Dodge Ram)
"I've never really faced a scenario like this before.  I'm not going to say that this doesn't make us lose a little confidence.  I'd say were going have to go back to the shop and talk about the whole thing, the driver, the crew chief, the whole organization.  But this is racing.  Stuff like this is going to happen week in and week out.  You have to take the bad with the good.  Now we've got to try to figure out how we can get through the worst parts of it and make the best of the worst.  That's what racing is about.  You've got to find that happy compromise through the year to get that overall good run.

"It's kind of frustrating.  At the first of the season we had no expectations for us, and now we've received expectations.  So, we're kind of bobbling back and forth between the highs and the lows after the past two weeks.  But that's just racing.  You've just got to shake that stuff off.  

"We've just got to be more open and positive about everything after this.  To get to the good, we've got to stay positive through situations like this."