Brendan Gaughan Rewrites Texas Record Books With Back-to-Back Wins -- Dodge Notes & Quotes

“It’s an honor to say that we were the first people to repeat – especially thinking of all the Jack Spragues, Ron Hornadays and all of the people who have run here more than once.  Just like the last race this NAPA team was one bad you know what.  This team just rocks!  Shane Wilson (crew chief) and all of the guys gave me good pit stops all night.  Our final two-tire stop went really well.  I can’t complain.  We had a little bit of an aero-push – the Dodges we know get that aero-push when you get behind people.  But some Kevin Kroyer (engine builder) power and a little bit of luck never hurt us, and we ended up picking up another win here. Man, I love Texas.

“We came from about six truck lengths behind Ted Musgrave to eventually catch him.  Right before that yellow came out I changed up my line going into turn one and came out right on his butt, and I yelled to Billy Holbruck my spotter, ‘Holy ____, I learned something!’   I think we had something for them tonight.  I’ve said all year that Ted Musgrave is arguably the best driver in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, and to be able to compete with that team and that man on that level was pretty good.  Whatever happened on that yellow, he spun in the oil.  I’m not NASCAR and I don’t know those rules, but I can’t say I didn’t like the idea.  But it would have been a fun shootout with Ted and I in the end, but I think that we would have been able to pull through in the end anyhow.  We had great power.”

“I’d like to say I’m a cowboy, baby.  My daddy always asks me if I’m a cowboy before every race.  I’ve rode a lot of horses in my day, and we’ve got a ranch down here in Rutherford just a couple miles away.  I’d like to claim that I’m maybe a little bit of a pseudo-cowboy, but I love Texas.  

“Bo Puffer from Dodge better be getting a really expensive present ready for my race team because we’re going to win some more.  I’ve got every faith in the world in the NAPA gang.  I felt like we were prepared for this year, and we’re going to make that surge towards the top-10 in points.  We’ve got to get there – NAPA and Dodge want us to get there – and we’ve got a few more spots to and we’ll get it.

"Right now we’re hitting what we feel is our most comfortable stretch.  We’re going to Las Vegas, Fontana, Phoenix, which are all tracks that the Orleans team is very familiar with.  They’re all on the West Coast, so we don’t have to go far from our shop in Las Vegas.  I’ve won on two of those three tracks, and we’ve run well there numerous times.  We’ve got our own notes to go back on, and looks what happened when we had some good notes to come back with here.

“This is the same truck that we brought to Texas in June and won with.  It’s two for two here in Texas.  We’re definitely naming this truck ‘Lone Star’ now.  This track fits my driving style.  I started up on the speedways like at Las Vegas, so I’ve always liked the big tracks.  The main thing that makes us do so well here is Dodge.  This is why they signed us up.  They felt we would be an asset to their program, and we knew they would be an asset to be with because of the windtunnel time they give us and the amount of engineering help they give us.  That’s the difference with Dodge.  That’s why a privateer team like us is able to come in here and start winning.”

TED MUSGRAVE (No. 1 Mopar Performance Parts Dodge Ram)
“On that last restart with 10 laps to go it was pretty hairy out there.  There was a lot of oil down on the racetrack.  The rules have the lead-lap trucks in a single line in the front on that restart, so that gave me an opportunity to try and pass some guys at the end.  I flat-spotted my tires there a little bit in that spin a few laps earlier, but we were going to try and run it to the end anyhow.  But since NASCAR demanded me to go back of the lead pack, we decided to come in and get four tires and make some quick moves.  We were just trying to get some of the positions back that they took away from us.  

“I had no idea if those tires would have made it, but we were going to try anyhow.  Either they would make it, or they were going to blow out and make one heck of a wreck.  As it turned out, they made us go back to the end of the front line, so it was no question to put on four fresh tires – just put the safety feature on and go.  If they wouldn’t have made me go to the tail end we were going to stay out and win the race.

“We would have needed a lot more laps left to get back to the lead from where we were forced to restart.  Track position means a lot at Texas.  With 30 laps to go when I was in the lead and Brendan and I were back in clean air, we were able to run some really, really fast laps.  As soon as you get mired back in some traffic on this track you just can’t go anywhere.  We would have needed to cycle all the way back through another pit stop to get me back out front again.  As you could see tonight it was hard to pass.  People come up on other trucks and they just can’t go anywhere.  The aerodynamic rules out here really hurt you, and you can’t really do much about it.  The big spoilers they put on these trucks are just for chicken babies out here.  Real men know how to get on a racetrack and run them.  Anyhow they’ve got us so they just can’t get through traffic right now.”

JASON LEFFLER (No. 2 Team ASE/CARQUEST Dodge Ram)
“The track was exactly the same as it was in June, but we had a different truck this time and it was slow.  We couldn’t get a handle on the Team ASE/CARQUEST Dodge, and we struggled with it all weekend.  It’s a truck we struggled with before.  We took it to Michigan and it didn’t run right there – we were luck to have finished second.  Here you just don’t have the track to race on.  You have that one lane to race on and that’s it.  We struggled.  

“That second lane opens up here for the Winston Cup guys, but it doesn’t open up for us.  The race is really short, and we don’t get a lot of practice time to support it.

“We finished the race though, and that’s good.  The team hasn’t had very good finishes here, there was always run in some kind of problem.  I’m not sure what that will do to the points standings, but that’s not the finish we wanted.”