By Dustin Dow
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Last month the NASCAR Busch Series came to Kentucky Speedway with a field full of drivers biding their time on the No. 2 circuit, just waiting for that Winston Cup ride to open up.

Today, NASCAR's third series, the Craftsman Truck Series, rolls into the Speedway to qualify for Saturday's Built Ford Tough 225. But the drivers have different goals. Not everyone is trying to get to Winston Cup, and some have been there already and are winding down their careers. The blend of young upstarts and crafty veterans often creates a student-teacher relationship on and off the track.

"We were racing at Darlington, and Bobby Hamilton came up on me," said 28-year-old Brendan Gaughan, who makes it no secret that Cup racing is his goal. "I slowed down and let him go. I figured he knows the track better than I do. So I followed him and learned how to save tires. I had a better vehicle that day, but after the last pit stop, he drove away from me. I learned then that you better make adjustments on your last stop."

Drivers like Hamilton and Ted Musgrave drive in the CTS because they enjoy racing. Their full-time Cup days are well behind them, but a 25-race truck schedule seems like a part-time job compared to the 36-race Winston Cup grind.

"I built my truck so if I got ready to slow down, I'd have something to do," Hamilton said. "I'm home a little more now, and saving on airfare. The quantity is smaller (in the CTS), but the quality is there."

Hamilton is trying to follow in his son's footsteps at Kentucky Speedway. Bobby Hamilton Jr. won the Meijer 300 Busch Series race June 14. How much longer the elder Hamilton will be racing trucks might depend on whether he wins the points championship this season. Hamilton said it wouldn't be right to quit after winning a title, but he doesn't expect the current demographics of the series to hold up for much longer.

"We help (younger drivers) because they respect our opinion," Hamilton said. "But somewhere down the road, this series will be completely used to bring new guys up to Winston Cup."

That's exactly how the younger drivers see the truck series. Jon Wood, 21, won his first truck race last weekend in Kansas and already has visions of Cup racing.

"I look at Craftsman as a half-notch below Busch," Wood said. "It's more like the proving grounds for Winston Cup. We're not very far away. If you were to move my team to Busch, we would be really good."

Gaughan said moving up to Busch might not even be necessary and that CTS trucks have more in common with Winston Cup cars. The trucks have more horsepower than a Busch car, and the wheel base is wider, more comparable to Winston Cup. The main difference is that the trucks handle much more poorly than the Cup cars.

"I just don't feel that you have to go through the Busch Series anymore," Gaughan said. "We run at all of the same tracks as Winston Cup except Pocono. And all the tracks are kind of alike."

Gaughan is second in a tight points race that separates the first-place driver, Travis Kvapil, from sixth place by just 57 points. Gaughan is six points off the pace.

"I'd love to race Winston Cup next year," Gaughan said. "But first I'm working on winning the championship this year."

Built Ford Tough 225

Schedule: Today, qualifying, 6 p.m.; Saturday, race, 8 p.m. (Speed Channel).

Track: Kentucky Speedway (oval, 1.5 miles, 14 degrees banking in turns).

Race distance: 225 miles, 150 laps.

Last year: Mike Bliss won his second straight race and set a truck series record for margin of victory by finishing 18.197 seconds ahead of Dennis Setzer in winning the Kroger 225 at Kentucky Speedway. The previous record was 13.186 seconds, set by Jack Sprague at Phoenix in 1997.

E-mail ddow@enquirer.com