Gaughan Triumphs At Road America
- Updated: June 21, 2014
An emotional Brendan Gaughan pulls into victory lane at Road America with the name of his late grandfather on the roof of his car. [Mark Walczak Photo]
Elkhart Lake, WI – Rain, mist, clouds, heavier rain, clearing and finally sun.
These and more describe the Gardner Denver 200 NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Road America: a race that forced crew chiefs to make hard decisions that sometimes worked out and at times proved difficult.
Brendan Gaughan, who came back from multiple incidents in his pursuit of late-race leader Alex Tagliani, finally won the rain interrupted, strategy filled race when Tagliani ran out of fuel with two laps to go after a late race caution made his fuel saving plans moot.
Nursing both an ever dwindling fuel supply and a dwindling lead, Tagliani’s Team Penske Ford ran out just past the pit entrance, opening the door for Gaughan, Chase Elliott and a surprising Kevin O’Connell to battle for the win through a green-white-checker finish on a damp, but drying circuit.
“We were the best car on the strategy we were on. We were lucky that our off-course incidents forced our strategy to change; and finally I didn’t screw up,” noted a jubilant Gaughan whose patience paid off as he scored his first career Nationwide Series win. “On the restart we needed to be on rain tires. You can put on a hell of a show in the rain.”And a show he did put on, first battling Chase Elliott and then a revived Alex Tagliani who fell perhaps one lap short of a great comeback after leading 19 laps before running out of that precious Sunoco fuel.
“We overcame an early tire leak and then worked hard to manage our fuel. We tried to go to the end, but got caught short and had to get pushed back to the pits,” noted the versatile Canadian who took on enough fuel and slick tires to make a two- lap run after Gaughan and Elliott. “We put on slicks since the track was drying and fought back from 23rd on the last restart to second at the flag.”
But his exciting run through the field wasn’t without incident as he made contact with Elliott as the two entered Canada Corner on the last lap while battling for second: a move that the son of Bill didn’t appreciate.
“The track was still damp and I figured he would dive bomb me, but I didn’t know where or when,” Elliott recalled. “It’s frustrating. He wasn’t going to win the race.”But as the two made contact Elliott was forced off his line and fell to fourth as road racer/venture capitalist Kevin O’Connell’s Chevrolet slipped past, allowing Gaughan to extend his lead to the finish.
“I needed a dry line (since he was on slicks) but some guys were taking away my dry line and it was like ice if I got on the wet. I did try to judge passes,” said a somewhat apologetic Tagliani, “and when he (Elliott) learned that I was on slicks all he said was ‘Good job mate.’ ”
The race was delayed for about an hour at the beginning as NASCAR waited to see if the low-hanging clouds would open up and allow teams to put on rain tires for the start. But after waiting, the event finally took the green flag with everyone on slicks as Sam Hornish Jr. led three times in the early going in his Joe Gibbs Toyota that he shares with Kyle Busch.
Hornish fell to 12th at the finish after a series of off-course excursions dropped him well behind the lead group.
Rain did hit the circuit at the half-way mark and NASCAR called the field in to allow everyone to mount rain tires and top off their fuel as the track grew wet.Two questions began to surface with about 12 laps remaining: Would the track dry enough for teams to switch back to slicks, and would the leaders who didn’t stop for fuel on a lap 38 caution, especially Hornish and Tagliani, have enough fuel to make it to the end?
For Tagliani it was a bitter answer to the fuel question as the decision to stay out likely cost his team the race.
“Our plan was to save the car. I picked up the lead in the rain and tried to manage our fuel and get to the end.” A plan that had some promise, but in the end helped Gaughan win the race with just a 0.820 second margin.
Regan Smith finished 13th, but maintained his Nationwide Series point’s lead over Elliott Sadler (-10) and Chase Elliott (-11).
Paul Gohde heard the sound of race cars early in his life.
Growing up in suburban Milwaukee, just north of Wisconsin State Fair Park in the 1950’s, Paul had no idea what “that noise” was all about that he heard several times a year. Finally, through prodding by friends of his parents, he was taken to several Thursday night modified stock car races on the old quarter-mile dirt track that was in the infield of the one-mile oval -and he was hooked.
The first Milwaukee Mile event that he attended was the 1959 Rex Mays Classic won by Johnny Thomson in the pink Racing Associates lay-down Offy built by the legendary Lujie Lesovsky. After the 100-miler Gohde got the winner’s autograph in the pits, something he couldn’t do when he saw Hank Aaron hit a home run at County Stadium, and, again, he was hooked.
Paul began attending the Indianapolis 500 in 1961, and saw A. J. Foyt’s first Indy win. He began covering races in 1965 for Racing Wheels newspaper in Vancouver, WA as a reporter/photographer and his first credentialed race was Jim Clark’s historic Indy win.Paul has also done reporting, columns and photography for Midwest Racing News since the mid-sixties, with the 1967 Hoosier 100 being his first big race to report for them.
He is a retired middle-grade teacher, an avid collector of vintage racing memorabilia, and a tour guide at Miller Park. Paul loves to explore abandoned race tracks both here and in Europe, with the Brooklands track in Weybridge England being his favorite. Married to Paula, they have three adult children and two cats.
Paul loves the diversity of all types of racing, “a factor that got me hooked in the first place.”