10-27-2007

10-27-2007 - 30th place in Memphis in first Busch race

Memphis TN - In his first NASCAR Busch Series start, and only 5th ever oval race, Colin finished 30th after a 15th place qualifying spot. As crew chief, Eddie Pardue said "we had a very good car today and Colin drove well. We got caught up in some else's accident and never got to show what we had."

Friday was cold and wet delaying practice for about 30 min. The 3M team worked on the car making changes all the while thinking about race set up for the impound race. Rookie practice went well with Colin posting 5th fastest time of the 27 rookies entered.

For the 2nd weekend in a row Colin was unable to do a mock qualifying run as a mechanical problem cut practice short by 10 min.

Saturday was nice and sunny but still cold. Early morning qualifying saw drivers using different methods to get some heat in the tires and all drivers were posting their best lap on lap 2. Colin ran his best lap of the weekend and posted a 15 place effort. 7 drivers were sent home with only the top 42 drivers making the field.

Carl Edwards had been helping Colin via text messages on Friday as he was racing the Nextel Cup car in Atlanta. Just a few hours before the start of the race Carl and the other Cup drivers showed up to race the Busch race here. At the start Colin made progress forward learning what he could about short track NASCAR racing. Eric Peterson, Colin's spotter was the hardest working member of the 3M team, as a total of 25 caution flags flew in the 250 laps race. Colin had moved up to 11th at one stage when a car spun directly in front of him and the car behind ran into the back of Colin. The damage was on the RF fender and rear bumper. A trip down pit lane for repairs put Colin in 28th place.

For the remaining laps it was yellow after yellow. The car was very good and Eddie had made a few small changes to free it up a little in the center of the turns. Another accident right in front of Colin increased the nose damage and put him at the back again after more repairs. By the end the car was battered and bruised but the crew and driver kept going resulting in a 30th place finish one lap down to the leader.

From Ford Racing:

COLIN BRAUN – No. 16 3M Ford Fusion – (finished 30th, qualified 15th) – “Well, we certainly had an eventful day. We started out pretty decent there running behind the No. 6 [David Ragan] and those guys. The 3M Ford Fusion was running really good. Unfortunately we kinda got back there and stuck with the yahoos back there. Something happened in front of me and I got hit from behind and ran into the guys in front of me. It was just a downward spiral from there. I certainly learned a lot and had a lot of fun. We got a lot of two lap runs there and that was about it. We really didn’t have a chance to improve our lap, but certainly enjoyed it and had fun and I’m looking forward to race a Busch race again sometime soon. Hopefully, I can take a lot from what I learned here and apply it forward. Guys like Eddie Pardue [crew chief] and the guys did a heck of a job of sticking with me. I figured they would have said that there was enough wrecking and say that I was done for the night. We kept it up there. It was a weird deal when you get sandwiched in there between two guys and there’s nothing you can do no matter how good of brakes you have. I learned a lot and had a lot of fun.” WAS THE RACE AS TOUGH AS YOU EXPECTED? “Yeah, I’d say it was probably where I thought it would be based on what Carl [Edwards] and all the guys have told me. I didn’t think there would be as many guys crashing and wrecking and spinning people out and all that. It got pretty wild there.”