4-18-2008 - Colin 2nd fastest in Final practice in Mexico

Mexico City, Mexico - Colin Braun, driver of the No. 16 3M Ford Fusion was the fastest Ford in Friday’s happy hour practice and second quickest overall. Braun (88.109 sec., 102.882 mph) was one-hundredth of a second off the pace set by leader Scott Pruett (88.097 sec., 102.896 mph). Qualifying is scheduled for 10:35 a.m. on Saturday morning.

THERE ARE A LOT OF HAPPY FACES IN THE NO. 16 GARAGE. “Yeah, it went really good today. My crew chief Eddie Pardue and the guys, they worked through a lot of good changes here. We got a lot of good stuff tried that we wanted to get done on our test plan and I think we have a pretty fast car. I think everybody did mock runs there at the end and unfortunately we only had one lap on our mock run and we had the red flag come out and a few other guys got in the way there right at the end. I felt we could have been a little bit faster than that, I’m sure everybody does, but I’m real happy right now. We should be in good shape for the race.”

WHAT DID YOU LEARN TODAY? “Today was just about learning how to drive a stock car here. I’ve been quick in the cars that I’ve driven here in the past. It was a little bit different driving the 3M Ford Fusion car. It’s still basically the same thing, though. You’ve got to get it to turn and put the power down well and that’s something the guys worked really hard on today and our car does really well. I think we’re quite good on old tires and I feel like we’ll be pretty good this weekend.”

IS YOUR CAR BETTER ON LONG RUNS, SHORT RUNS OR UNIVERSALLY GOOD? “I think our car is pretty universally good. It’s good on a long run, it’s good on a short run. We did a couple of race runs before on new tires and went out. Our first lap on race runs were on brand new real fast right off the bat and we’re also good as the run goes on.”

FIRST PRACTICE NOTES

Braun posted the third fastest time (89.868 sec., 100.868 mph) in Friday’s first practice. He turned a lap time just two-tenths off the pace of the leader, Kyle Busch (89.661 sec., 101.101 mph).

ON RACING AT THE ROAD COURSE IN MEXICO CITY. “I’m really excited to be here. The 3M Ford Fusion Nationwide car is pretty cool. We tested at VIR and it went really well. We had a lot of fun up there. Boris Said and Carl Edwards helped me out quite a bit out there. It was a lot of fun. I know Eddie [Pardue, crew chief] has a good starting set-up here for this weekend, so I think we should have a good car right off the bat.”

OUT OF THE FORD DRIVERS, YOU’RE THE ROOKIE IN THE TRUCK SERIES, BUT HERE, YOU COULD BE CONSIDERED A VETERAN. “I think Boris and Carl probably have it figured out more than I do, but certainly I’m trying to help Erik [Darnell] out as much as I can. He did a great job down there at VIR. This should be a lot of fun. I’m looking forward to learning a lot from Carl and Boris and hopefully we’re going to have a good run.”

DO YOU HAVE A COMFORT LEVEL HERE? “Yeah, I’m very comfortable here. This is one of my favorite road course tracks I think I’ve raced at back in the sports car days. I really enjoy coming here, it’s just a cool place with a lot neat fans and kind of different, so it makes it a lot of fun and really interesting.”

WHY IS THIS YOUR FAVORITE ROAD COURSE? “It has such a good flow and good rhythm, you can really get into a good rhythm and just kind of cruise around the race track and be incredibly fast, but feel like you’re not going fast at all. That makes it a lot of fun.”

WILL BRAKES BE A FACTOR HERE? “I think the guys at PFC have told us that we don’t have to worry about the brakes too much. They’ve done a really good job getting us a good package we tried at VIR; it lasted awhile and really worked well. I think we’re going to be in good shape here. I don’t think we’ll have to conserve much. The Goodyear tires should hold-up pretty well. It’s going to come to us saving our car and not getting into lapped track or hitting the curbs too hard. Just saving the car to the end of the race and see what we’ve got in the last 10 laps.”

IS QUALIFYING KEY? “I don’t think it is. I watched the race from last year here with my crew chief Eddie and it looks like you can qualify anywhere and still be pretty quick because pit strategy is so different. When you fall into the race, the race pace really comes out. How could of a race car really comes out. I think the guys who have a strong race car will run to the front. Obviously, last year the Ganassi cars were just so fast that nobody could really touch them. They qualified first and third and just kind of ran the whole race that way. I think it comes down to a little bit of qualifying to see how fast you are. But once you fall into the race, you can still pass pretty easily here. There’s such a big difference in the cars and drivers’ abilities and stuff like that, that it should be easy to pass.”

IS THE TRACK WIDE ENOUGH TO PASS? “Oh, yeah, for sure. There are two or three really good passing opportunities places that we’ve talked about. I’m looking forward to trying some of those out.”