By: Sarah Handy, Staff Writer
Fan favorite Brendan Gaughan will return to the driver’s seat in Sunday’s GEICO 500 at Talladega Superspeedway for Beard Motorsports.
Due to his impressive seventh-place finish in the season opener Daytona 500, Gaughan is locked into the 40-car field. If it wasn’t for that result, his career best Daytona 500 finish, he may be watching from home.
However, that isn’t the case. While in past years the field was set by qualifying, this years GEICO 500 will be set by owners points. Here is where that seventh-place finish comes into play again – the team is 39th in points which guarantees Gaughan a spot.
All 😁 because it's FINALLY race week again!@Brendan62 | #NotGaughanYet | #NASCAR pic.twitter.com/arETnQKLns
— Beard Motorsports (@BeardOil62) June 15, 2020
Gaughan will make his 10th NASCAR Cup Series start at Talladega [Superspeedway]. In nine previous starts, the Las Vegas native has one top-five and two top-10 finishes.
Brendan [Gaughan] has made 13 NASCAR Cup Series starts with Beard Motorsports, all of those starts have come at Daytona and Talladega. Those 13 starts have seen Gaughan earn three top-10 finishes.
Impressive when you stop to consider Beard [Motorsports] does it all with one full-time employee, crew chief Darren [Shaw]. The team’s one part-time employee, car chief Drew [Mickey] is a full-time industrial plumber. And those two mechanics that come in on race weekends? Nic [Hill] is a boat captain and Jack [Cagnon] is an automotive body technician.
Gaughan has run up front in the No. 62 Beard Oil Distributing/South Point Hotel & Casino Chevrolet Camaro on a number of occasions, Talladega included. In his [most] recent visit to Talladega last fall, Gaughan took the lead as the field approached turn three.
Unfortunately, he never made it through [turn three] before he was collected in a multi-car accident. Despite a 27th place finish, Gaughan remained upbeat as he spoke to reporters after being checked and released from the infield care center.
As for Sunday, Gaughan will seek to capture his first NASCAR Cup Series win. He previously announced that 2020 would be his final season competing in NASCAR.