Brendan Gaughan

Gaughan has raced the last two seasons in a part-time capacity in the Cup Series. It has been a restrictor-plate racing campaign only (4 races) at Daytona and Talladega with Gaunt Brothers Racing. Gaughan grabbed a pair of Top-15 finishes in these outings last season, so he is competitive in this style of racing. The limited schedule reduces Gaughan to only a spot starter in weekly lineup fantasy racing leagues.

RCR is having to cut back to three teams in 2018, so the No. 3 Chevrolet will host more drivers than usual. The Dillon brothers will get seven starts each, which is the new mandated maximum for regular Cup drivers. Veteran Gaughan should pick up plenty of the remaining action behind the wheel of the team’s Camaro. Ty started 27 races for this team last year and nabbed 16 Top-10 finishes. With this driver lineup they should be good to easily break the 20 Top-10 plateau, but their ability to win races is in question. RCR went winless between their five different Xfinity Series teams last year, and that seems to be the biggest problem. Consistency and Top-10 finishes shouldn’t be an issue, but this team just doesn’t have the speed to win races.

The 40-year-old veteran will be back for another season of racing at RCR. Gaughan now has three full seasons of competition under his belt with this team. Last year he racked up four Top-5 and 16 Top-10 finishes, both career-high marks for this driver. However, Gaughan failed to visit victory lane for the second-straight season and finished a lowly 12th in the overall driver standings. This was due mostly to the newly implemented Chase format in the Xfinity Series. Gaughan will be paired again with crew chief Shane Wilson and they'll see if they can get the No. 62 Chevrolet back into victory lane in the coming season. While that's not very likely, we should still see strong consistency from this driver and team on the larger ovals, road course and cookie cutter tracks. Only the short tracks seem to be his biggest weakness.

While the 40-year-old driver didn’t pick up any wins last season, Gaughan did have a career-best season for Top 10’s. He nabbed 14 of them en route to a respectable ninth-place finish in the final driver standings. The race-winning touch of 2014 was missing, but consistency and better performances across the board marked the No. 62 RCR team’s 2015 season. Gaughan will return this year and continue those efforts with crew chief Shane Wilson. While this driver and team has likely hit a ceiling in terms of performance, we can still expect a Top-10 finish in the driver standings and a middle-teens effort in Top-10 finishes.

Gaughan signed to drive the No. 62 RCR Chevy truck in Dec 2012. The journeyman driver will race the full schedule and compete for the Camping World Truck Series championship.