By Lee Montgomery
Special to the Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service

(July 7, 2010)

Brendan Gaughan knew Rusty Wallace Racing’s switch to Toyota and technical alliance with Joe Gibbs Racing wouldn’t pay immediate dividends. But Gaughan figured it would eventually, and it has.

Heading into Friday’s Dollar General 300 at Chicagoland Speedway, Gaughan is sitting ninth in the NASCAR Nationwide Series standings; he was 24th after the fourth race of the season.

“I said at the start of the season that the TRD stuff and the help we’re getting from Toyota is not going to pay dividends until May or June,” Gaughan said. “One, we had two new crew chiefs—me with Brad Parrott, (driver) Steve (Wallace) with Scott (McDougall). We’ve got new engineers, we’ve got new knowledge coming in the door.”

Gaughan said the move to Toyota saw the team “get inundated with some engineering,”

“And I said it was going to take us until May or June until we assimilated it all in the race team, when we had chemistry within the race team, and the crew chiefs and engineers knew what we were looking for,” Gaughan said. “It wasn’t going to be, ‘Hey, look, we’re Toyota now, let’s go win.’ ”

Gaughan didn’t get his first top 10 until the fifth race, but in the past seven races, he has finished in the top 15 five times, including a streak of fourth at Kentucky, third at Road America and 10th at New Hampshire.

The improvement also coincided with a test at Pikes Peak, a track that was on the Nationwide Series schedule until 2005.

“Testing is what has brought us to this point,” Gaughan said. “We couldn’t test, we couldn’t afford it, we didn’t have cars done, we’re struggling to get information. Finally, we had all these engineering notes, and Rusty said, ‘Screw it. Let’s go test.’ ”

Testing validated that they were was using the increased information correctly and helped give the team direction. RWR isn’t quite the equal to the bigger Sprint Cup teams competing in the Nationwide Series, but Gaughan said RWR is catching up.

At a 1.5-mile track such as Chicagoland, Cup teams generally have an advantage because engineering and aerodynamics play a bigger role, and smaller teams don’t have access to as much information.

“I’m never going to say we’re right there with the Cup teams,” Gaughan said. “We just don’t have the testing. We don’t have the ability to test like they do. We don’t have the test teams like they do. We don’t have all that information like they do.”

Still, Gaughan was able to finish fourth last month at 1.5-mile Kentucky Speedway, even passing eventual winner Joey Logano for the lead on a restart late in the race.

“I think we can … compete and be top five every week,” Gaughan said. “We do have better information, and we are doing things differently than we used to. I think we’re going to be there.”

Fast facts

What: Dollar General 300
Where: Chicagoland Speedway; Joliet, Ill.
When: Friday, 8 p.m. ET
TV: ESPN, 7:30 p.m. ET
Radio: MRN/Sirius Satellite Ch. 128
Track layout: 1.5-mile oval
Race distance: 200 laps/300 miles
Qualifying: Friday, 4:05 p.m. ET
2009 winner: Joey Logano
2009 polesitter: Carl Edwards
Points leaders: 1. Brad Keselowski, 2,806; 2. Carl Edwards, 2,529; 3. Justin Allgaier, 2,318; 4. Kyle Busch, 2,291; 5. Kevin Harvick, 2,163; 6. Paul Menard, 2,077; 7. Joey Logano, 1,933; 8. Steve Wallace, 1,922; 9. Brendan Gaughan, 1,895; 10. Jason Leffler, 1,839.