Semi-retired NASCAR driver Brendan Gaughan has contested four NASCAR Cup Series races per season as driver for Beard Motorsports since 2017, contesting races at the superspeedways of Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway. When NASCAR modified its 2020 schedule to include the infield road course at Daytona, Gaughan and his #62 Beard team added the GoBowling.com 235, scheduled for Sunday, to their docket.
“Well, first it’s still Daytona, so it technically counts [on his Daytona/Talladega schedule],” Gaughan said. “We said all of the Daytona races, so it still counts. What happened is that, as soon as it got added to the schedule, immediately my mind went, ‘Wow, I would love to race the Daytona road course.’ There’s very few of us Cup drivers that have experience on that race course. And with no practice and no qualifying, that gives about 10 of us a very large advantage over the field. So I was immediately enticed by it. And, then, you know how much I always speak so highly of Richard Childress Racing. Richard called and said, ‘Hey, come on, man; you know you want to do it,’ and I kind of chuckled, because everyone knows I love my road racing. I talked to the Beard family and said, ‘Hey, you want to add a race to the schedule?’ It wasn’t in the budget. It wasn’t planned, originally, but the Beards were on board. They are in the same boat as me. This is a retirement year like me, and they are having the same fun I am. They went, ‘Ooohh, we can do well there.’ So we called Richard up, and he built me a brand new Beard Oil Distributing/South Point Hotel & Casino Chevrolet Camaro from RCR that we were able to rent for Beard Motorsports to go race.”
Gaughan will start 39th, last, as a result of being a part-time entry.
Sunday’s race will be the first-ever for the Cup Series on Daytona’s road course, and there will be no practice for the race. Gaughan, though, does have experience on the course, via his participation in the Rolex 24 at Daytona in 2016 and 2018.
Gaughan was a part of the driver lineup on the #20 BAR1 Motorsports team for both races. In 2016, the team finished third.
Gaughan plans to retire completely from NASCAR competition after the 2020 season. He already has contested two races in 2020, one each at Daytona and Talladega and plans to contest the return races at both tracks later this season. He finished seventh in the season-opening Daytona 500 in February, one of three top-10 finishes in his 14 races, so far, with the Beard team.
Since Gaughan last raced at Talladega in June, he has tested positive for COVID-19 but has been cleared to race.
“I feel fantastic. I’m finally out of the house,” Gaughan said. “The toughest part of the whole ordeal was the mental aspect. I truly feel for people who struggle with depression and have to deal with COVID-19, because this thing is tough. You, literally, get stuck in a location by yourself. Fortunately for me, I had my puppy. I missed my two children tremendously. But it’s amazing now, because we live in the age of the Jetsons that we can pick up a phone and look at their faces. And I learned things that I could do. I could get in the car and drive around. I didn’t have to just sit in the house. Advice to other people is if you do get it and have to isolate, you can still get yourself out and isolate and not endanger others. It was very difficult for me, because as most people know, I don’t sit still well.”
Gaughan has made 64-career starts in the Cup Series, resulting in one top-five [a fourth at Talladega in 2004] and seven top-10 finishes. He also has two-career NASCAR Xfinity Series wins and eight NASCAR Truck Series victories.
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