Brendan Gaughan, a longtime NASCAR veteran, is making a shocking return to racing. Seemingly coming out of left field, Gaughan, who hasn’t attempted to compete in NASCAR since making his last Cup Series start in 2020, is making a comeback.
Gaughan, 50, will compete in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series’ first race in San Diego at the Coronado Naval Base with McAnally-Hilgemann Racing in the No. 20 Chevrolet Silverado, sponsored by South Point Casino, which his family owns.
“This is so cool to come back and race in a truck again for Bill,” Gaughan said. “We’ve got a ton of history together, tons of great memories, and this is going to be something we’ll talk about for a long time. Ever since I heard the race at Coronado was going to happen, I knew I wanted to run something, and I’m just glad Bill and I were able to make this happen. This is a great chance for the NASCAR community to celebrate and recognize our military with a unique event, and I wanted to be a part of it.”
Gaughan’s NASCAR return will be his first Truck Series start since the 2013 season finale.
Who Is Brendan Gaughan?
The Las Vegas-born racer has made 503 starts across NASCAR’s top three divisions since making his debut in 1997.
He competed with Bill McAnally in what is now the ARCA Menards Series West, winning two championships in 2000 and 2001 before going full-time racing in the Truck Series with his family-owned team in 2002. He won eight races in his first two full-time seasons in the Truck Series, catching the eye of Penske-Jasper Racing in 2004. He scored one top-five and four top 10s in his rookie season, but was replaced by Travis Kvapil in 2005.
Gaughan returned to the Truck Series, racing for his family-owned team again through 2007. In 2008, he joined a different team and made the leap to what is now the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series in 2009, driving for NASCAR Hall of Famer Rusty Wallace.
After two solid seasons with Wallace’s team, he went back to the Truck Series with Germain Racing in 2011. In 2012 and 2013, he scaled back to a part-time program with Richard Childress Racing, which remained his home through the end of his career.
He had his best Truck Series results in a decade with RCR, earning four top fives in just eight starts, which lead to his promotion to full-time in the O’Reilly Series in 2014. Gaughan didn’t disappoint, winning his only two races in the series at Road America and Kentucky.
Gaughan’s Winding Down
Gaughan eventually decided to scale back his NASCAR competition to focus on his executive role at South Point.
2017 was his final full-time season, in which his performance declined, but he still had two top fives and eight top 10s.
And that’s when he began to compete part-time in the Cup Series once again. This time, it was for Beard Motorsports, which still competes today with a RCR alliance in Gaughan’s famed No. 62 (it started as No. 75).
He made four starts each year — all at drafting tracks — from 2017 through 2019, with five 2020. He earned three top 10s with Beard Motorsports, including a seventh-place finish in the 2020 Daytona 500.
Brendan Gaughan To Make Unexpected NASCAR Return