Brendan Gaughan gets Nationwide Series win at Kentucky

His Richard Childress Racing teammate, Ty Dillon, may have dominated the VisitMyrtleBeach.com 300 NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Kentucky Speedway in Spart on Saturday night, but Brendan Gaughan took the lead on a late-race restart in the final seven laps to claim his second series win of the 2014 season. RCR swept the top-three, with Brian Scott taking runner-up honors and Dillon finishing third.

"“I’ve always loved my restarts,” Gaughan said."

JR Motorsports teammates Chase Elliott and Regan Smith finished fourth and fifth, and another RCR entry, that of Cole Conley, was sixth to give Chevrolet a sweep of the top-six of the finishing order.

"“We were at least able to get up front and give ourselves a chance,” Elliott said. “Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get the job done.”"

Dillon led 155 of the 200 laps that made up the race after starting on the pole. Gaughan was second in the laps led category with 22 laps led, while Elliott led 20. Three other drivers each led a single lap.

"“We had a dominant car. I hate it for my guys. It hurts; it hurts bad,” Dillon said of coming up short after dominating the race. “One, two, three — not bad. But it hurts bad.”"

Gaughan led early when he took the lead from Dillon on a restart that followed a lap-five caution. He lost the lead on pit road, though, with a call to take four tires while other front-runners took two during the second caution of the race that came out on lap 24. He restarted 14th while Dillon restarted with the lead and pulled away.

Sam Hornish Jr., who started the race next to Dillon on the front row, was back up to second soon after the restart and maintained the position until Elliott moved into the second spot soon after a restart following a caution on lap 68. Hornish wound up wrecking late in the race.

Dillon pulled away to a lead of nearly five seconds over Elliott by the time the yellow flag waved again on lap 114. Scott replaced Elliott in second after beating him off pit road during the yellow flag, and when the race returned to green, Dillon pulled away again, but he wasn’t able to get out as far in front of Scott as he had Elliott earlier.

"“Track position was key the whole time,” Scott said. “I felt like we were a first and second-place car the whole time. We just got stuck back in traffic.”"

Elliott retook second from Scott on pit road to restart next to Dillon with just under 30 laps to go. Elliott then got by Dillon to take the lead just before the sixth yellow flag on lap 175. Elliott restarted with the lead, and Michael McDowell got by Dillon for second. Dillon retook second, though, on a restart with 14 laps remaining, while Scott moved up to third and Gaughan to fourth.

"“I asked for something different in my transmissions and the guys in the transmission department gave it too me,” Gaughan said."

The yellow flag waved one more time, the eighth time in the race, creating a seven-lap sprint to the finish that saw the RCR teams move up to the top-three spots in the running order.

Chris Buescher finished seventh and McDowell eighth. Justin was ninth in his Nationwide Series debut. Ross Chastain rounded out the top-10.

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