Conversation: Brendan Gaughan

MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- Brendan Gaughan is the only guy in NASCAR who can say he played college basketball for John Thompson at Georgetown and that his father owns a Las Vegas casino.

Conversation  Archive

Yes, Gaughan clearly has a unique background. Yet here he is, two races away from winning a championship in one of NASCAR's elite national series: the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.

There is work left to be done, of course, as Gaughan holds a slim 45-point margin on Travis Kvapil. Ted Musgrave and Dennis Setzer aren't too far behind.

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Gaughan would make an interesting champion, based on his bubbly personality. And besides, NASCAR would love to have John Thompson at the awards banquet.

Lee Montgomery of NASCAR.com talked with Gaughan recently to talk about his past, his future, his race team and about Thompson - the legendary Hoya coach who wasn't impressed with the actions of another NCTS driver at a race at Richmond recently.

Heard you talking before about headlines. Got any good ones we can use?

	Long Gaughan. Gaughan with the wind. Brendan's heard 'em all.

Brendan Gaughan: Headlines. Whoever came up with the 'Four-Gaughan Conclusion,' I like that guy. That was pretty good. I've heard 'Going, Going, Gaughan,' I've heard 'Long Gaughan,' I've heard all those things. Whoever came up with 'Four-Gaughan Conclusion,' he's pretty good. That took some thought.

Maybe we can come up some more then. We hear the phrase "points racing" a lot. What does that mean to you?

Brendan Gaughan: In the Craftsman Truck Series this year? Points racing means trying to win. At Texas, we won and only gained 10 points. In the Craftsman Truck Series, with the current battle we have now, points racing is flat-out trying to win. That's the only thing we've got left to do."

Are you a guy, when you back to the trailer, do you catch yourself dreaming about a championship? Are you that kind of guy?

Brendan Gaughan: Dreaming about a championship? I believe we all dream about it. It's what we do with those dreams. If we believe that the Orleans Racing Team can win a championship, out of Las Vegas, that was a dream.

Well, we've worked hard to make that dream come true.

You just mentioned that you guys are from Vegas. Do you kind of see yourselves as outsiders? When you come in the garage, are people like, 'Vegas guys have showed up now'?

Brendan Gaughan: No. We don't think we're the outlaws or anything like that. We have bucked some of the typical NASCAR system. I'm sure some people don't like it, but I think we've proved that it's possible.

We're proving that it's possible, and I'm actually pretty happy about the way it works out for us. It works in our favor, in my eyes.

In what ways? What are some of the advantages of being way out there?

	Gaughan won at Texas for the fourth straight time. Of course, it's easier when your race team only has to travel 1,000 miles instead of 2,000 miles.

Brendan Gaughan: The old joke of toolboxes on wheels? Why are toolboxes on wheels? So the guy can move his toolbox to the next shop as he leaves.

My guys don't leave. We know have guys from the East coast calling us to come work for us. But my guys don't leave. We haven't really lost anybody we've ever wanted to lose.

Seems like a pretty good way to keep chemistry going.

Brendan Gaughan: Oh, it's great chemistry. I've got four guys on my race team -- five guys -- that have been racing around myself since I was 15, 16, 17 years old. I've got one engine builder my entire life.

My spotter, Billy Holbrook, used to ride in the passenger seat with me when I was 17 years old in a desert car. Poor SOB. I've got guys who have been with me a long time.

And then the rest of this team, the bulk of them, have won both Winston West championships. And all we've done is add quality and key pieces."

You mentioned the off-road background. What was it about NASCAR? What drew you there? Why did you want to get into that?

Brendan Gaughan: I didn't. A man named Walked Evans was my boss all those years in the off-road. I drove for him from the time I was 15 to the time I was 25.

Walker was one of the original Craftsman Truck teams. I graduated from Georgetown, and the last race of the season was at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Butch Miller was driving for him, and he said, 'Hey, come drive this truck.'

We got permission to go out there, and I had a ball. I was like, 'Hey, this is pretty fun' -- all the way until I hit the wall. Then I was like, 'Oh, that hurts.' From there, we went to the Winston West and moved back up."

Being from Vegas, growing up in the Vegas environment, are you a gambler by nature? Do you have that in your blood?

Brendan Gaughan: You know, my dad (Michael) reads NASCAR.com. My daddy always yells at me for gambling a little too much some days. Dad, if you're reading this, I need to borrow some money.

	Dad, I won! Can I borrow some cash?

I may have been gambling recently, as a matter of fact. When you drive for your dad, you don't get paid a whole lot, so you need to borrow money from him occasionally.

Yeah, I gamble a little bit. I like to consider myself a gambler, but so is my grandfather (Jackie) and so is my father.

It's in the Gaughan blood.

Brendan Gaughan: It's definitely in the Gaughan blood. My grandfather is 86 years old, and every day you'll find him at a pan table in the afternoon and a poker game at night. He's my hero.

You're name has come up in the Winston Cup rumor mill this year. Are you going to stay in trucks next year? Do you get tired of being asked that question?

Brendan Gaughan: I've found a new line for it. I've told everybody that I'm staying in the Craftsman Truck Series. I am not going to leave this race team until it is prepared for me to leave.

We now have Dodge Motorsports as our manufacturer. That's a huge deal, a multi-year deal with Dodge. That's my first step to being able to leave the team and having it survive.

Next step: find a sponsor. As soon as I find a sponsor, then I'm comfortable that this team will exist without me. Right now, it's just my dad spending money. It's not going to exist if I'm not there.

The only way I would leave this year is if the moon was wrapped up in a brown paper bag and handed over to me. That's how big the deal would have to be. As of right now, the last time I looked, the moon's still up there.

There are some Winston Cup car owners who have a lot of money, though.

Brendan Gaughan: Yeah, they could probably try. Having me be paid is not the big deal. I feel that the only thing that is right, personally, is this team to be OK.

	Gaughan's six wins leads the Craftsman Truck Series.

They have given their lives and souls to make this a success. How wrong of me is it to say: 'Thanks guys. Peace out. Thanks for getting us here. We couldn't find a sponsor.

We're closing, and I've got a ride'? That isn't right. From where I grew up, that isn't right. I'm not going to leave until I know this race team - we're a viable Craftsman Truck team.

We're awesome. We compete for championships now, we win races, we've got a great team. There's got to be a company that wants us."

Did you get any Cup offers this year?

Brendan Gaughan: I had a few, none that were the moon wrapped in a brown paper bag, not as many as everybody made it out to believe. Matter of fact, nowhere near half the rumors that I even heard.

Man, I'd show up to the race track and hear some of these things. There were some good ones.

Ray Evernham has not called me once all year. I've seen him a couple times and spoken to him in the garage and waved at him and said hi. But all these rumors that are going around are not true."

Having played at Georgetown, what did you learn from John Thompson? Is Hoya Paranoia alive and well?

Craftsman Truck Series  Tools of the Trade

Brendan Gaughan: Hoya Paranoia was a little dissipated by the time I got there. Coach Thompson, I have as much respect for him as I do my father.

He's a great human being. He really taught me how to be a man and everything I do in life, whether it's racing, whether it's personal life, whether it's the race team, every bit of it - even on the race track - my mental thought process, all of that has John Thompson teaching in it.

I would never, never give that up. No matter if you told me I'd be in Winston Cup at 20, not a chance.

Like what? What are some things that he taught, that he preached?

Brendan Gaughan: He's a teacher. He was a fantastic teacher, an awesome teacher, a great man. Mental toughness, physical toughness, how to handle yourself, how to control yourself in speaking situations, how to talk to media, how to protect yourself, how to let some of it hang out.

No matter what it was, he taught some children who went to Georgetown how to eat correctly at a dinner table. He taught others how to do other things in life. He's just a great, great man.

I heard you brought him to Richmond, but he wasn't real impressed.

Brendan Gaughan: Coach Thompson has come to a couple races. And he has always thought that I was crazy doing this stuff.

He actually tried to get me out of it as much as he could. Be brought Bill Russell to a race once, and they both shook their heads, going, 'You're nuts.'

At Richmond, I had Coach (Ed) Spriggs, who's a coach there, Michael Jackson, a player from the '80s, Coach Thompson, a teacher, Father Kemp from Georgetown, one of my favorite priest/teachers. They all came.

Coach (Thompson) is a sports fanatic. He calls NBA games, he's into sports pretty deep. I will have to say, he was very, very unimpressed with the actions of some things that happened to racing.

He couldn't believe that it happened. I had to explain to him that it doesn't happen, that it was a very fluke thing, that normally it doesn't, that most drivers have more respect than that. He still has a very bad taste in his mouth watching that.

Is he going to come back any time?

Brendan Gaughan: Oh, yeah. He watches us every week. He calls me every week. He still doesn't get how we do things, like at Texas. He says, 'How'd you do that, and nobody else could?'

I said, 'I really don't know, Coach. We don't either.' No, he loves it, he watches us when he can, he comes to them when he can. The NBA season keeps him busy now, but he's turned into a huge fan of ours.

Who would've guessed that Coach Thompson would be a race fan. I wouldn't have.