NASCAR Cup Series: Brendan Gaughan to retire after 2020

Brendan Gaughan announced that the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series season will be his final season of competition. He is slated to compete in four races in 2020.

In an exclusive interview with Beyond the Flag ahead of the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs in mid-September, Brendan Gaughan stated that he had been asked to sign a 10-year contract to continue competing for Beard Motorsports but that he didn’t think he’d make it that far.

Now we know for sure that he won’t.

The 44-year-old Las Vegas, Nevada native, who added that he would continue driving if he felt that he was still competitive, confirmed on on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio this past week that the 2020 season will be his final season competing in the Cup Series and that he does not plan on competing once the Gen-7 chassis and body are released in 2021.

Here is what Gaughan had to say about the matter.

"“I’ll be back at Daytona for sure, and try to run all four for them (Beard Motorsports). They’re great people, I love them to death. I don’t plan on going to the new car. I’ll probably do those four restrictor plate races for them, and then they’re going to have to find someone a little bit younger and a little more spry to put in their race car.”"

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After briefly taking the lead in the October playoff race at Talladega Superspeedway, Gaughan’s #62 Chevrolet was launched into the air and flipped over. After the race, he confirmed that he would still be back in 2020 for at least the Daytona 500, jokingly adding a “sorry Mom” at the end of his statement in reference to his horrifying wreck.

In addition to the 62nd annual Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway, Gaughan is slated to compete in the other three superspeedway races on the 2020 schedule, including the August race at the same track and the two races at Talladega Superspeedway, one in April and one in October.

Gaughan has driven for Beard Motorsports in these four superspeedway races since the 2017 season, and he has done a solid job in those 12 races, finishing in the top 12 on five occasions.

He has competed in 62 Cup Series careers over the course of 10 seasons going back to 2001, although his only full season was the 2004 season when he drove for Penske-Jasper Racing. His career-high finish is his fourth place finish in the October race at Talladega Superspeedway in 2004.

He has also spent several seasons competing full-time in the Truck Series and the Xfinity Series, eight in the former and six in the latter. He hasn’t competed in the Truck Series since 2013, and he hasn’t competed in the Xfinity Series since 2018, one year after his final full season in the series.

We wish Brendan Gaughan nothing but the best in his final four NASCAR Cup Series starts in 2020, and we wish him well as he steps away from the sport following the season and continues his involvement in the operation of a number of his family’s casinos.