6-15-2007 - Blog #2 from Le Mans

Braun's familiarity with the daunting Le Mans circuit grows with every outing. (Photo: Risi)

Colin Braun on Le Mans – Thursday

By: Colin Braun

I didn’t get to do too many laps last night because of the mixed weather conditions, but the night laps were really good. It’s definitely a different sort of night to what I’m used to because it’s so dark here. I’ve only raced at night before at Daytona but I’ve got a go-kart track at my house and I’ve done a bunch of laps at night in my kart with no lights just to see how it goes!

Out there was pretty frightening to start with and then I heard that half the track was wet and half the track was dry (because it’s such a big track) so I knew I had to focus, concentrate a lot. It wasn’t scary but I had to think hard about what I was doing.

In the corners you can see pretty well because they have lights, and you can see really good with the car lights but on the straightaway it’s very dark. The biggest thing which surprised me was fact that when you come out of a corner, you just see all these lights.

I kept thinking there were P (prototype) cars behind me as there were bright white lights in my mirrors. It freaked me out about three times as I kept thinking someone was right behind me but they were just corner lights. Once I’d figured that out everything was a lot easier and I wasn’t so nervous about it.
 

He's a rookie to the event, but Braun's produced one of the most impressive young careers of late in American racing. (Photo: Risi)