Brendan Gaughan isn’t the paranoid type, but the Las Vegas driver hasn’t ruled out sabotage as the cause of problems he encountered in a pair of races earlier this month. Gaughan had a plug wire come off at the start of races at Kansas Speedway and Kentucky Speedway on consecutive weekends. “We’ve gone to so many different conclusions for that (problem), we’ve even gone to somebody actually pulling them off,” Gaughan said. “Every other explanation is just as preposterous, so thinking that somebody reached up there and actually pulled one off, in impound or something, is not as impossible as it seems because there is no explanation for what happened.” Gaughan said his Las Vegas-based Orleans Racing team and engine builder Kevin Kroyer took extraordinary measures to make sure the problem didn’t resurface two weeks ago at New Hampshire International Speedway. “(At New Hampshire), we had them siliconed on and we went over to Ray Evernham’s (Winston Cup) team and got a special thing that they make for their cars — little keepers they make — and installed them. “Five minutes before (the race started), Kevin was allowed, through NASCAR, to open the hood and check each plug wire. We also drilled a hole through each (plug wire) boot so the gasses could escape if it was a gas build-up problem. “We took it pretty seriously.” Gaughan has had no plug-wire problems in his past two races, including his 18th-place effort Saturday at Michigan International Speedway. Gaughan said he has been using the same plug-wire manufacturer since he began racing and the set he had on his #62 NAPA Auto Parts Dodge at Kansas Speedway was a different set than he ran the following week at Kentucky Speedway. “Once is just a racing thing but the second time … we don’t know what it is that happened,” Gaughan said.(Las Vegas Sun)(7-31-2002)
