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Le Mans / ALMS
IN THE COCKPIT: Colin Braun, Road America
To win the championship after seven races out of the ten 2012 ALMS races this year is a real testament to how good this CORE autosport team is...
Colin Braun and Jon Bennett helped lead CORE autosport to another 1-2 finish, and more importantly, the 2012 ALMS PC Teams' Championship. (Photo: John Dagys)
What a weekend it was at Road America. First off I have to say congratulations to CORE autosport to win their second consecutive ALMS PC team championship. What an incredible accomplishment for my co-driver and team owner Jon Bennett, team manager Morgan Brady, and everyone at CORE autosport and our parent company, Composite Resources.
To win it after seven races out of the ten 2012 ALMS races this year is a real testament to how good this team is. I’m glad that my efforts helped the team get that title.
I’d like to say that I knew this weekend that we were going to win, but I had no idea where we were in the championship and that the team clinched it, until I was driving down pit road after the race and saw the guys in their championship hats and with posters. Even then I was wondering what was going on – I knew that it was a one-two finish (we’ll get to that in a minute) – but it was only when I got out of the car when I was told what was going on.
Let’s just say I was a bit preoccupied with what happened at Road America.
To start off, we had a strong No. 05 Composite Resources ORECA FLM09 in practice. Everything looked dialed in and we were setting some pretty fast laps. But then we threw a belt in the last practice, which caused us to miss qualifying.
So my co-driver Jon had to start in the back of the pack. Not behind the PC car field, where we were ranked seventh, but behind all the GT and GTC cars. In 33rd. Considering that traffic is always an issue with five classes of cars on the track at the same time, and we were behind two of the slower classes, it was going to be not just a question of skill, but survival.
Jon did it though. In less than 20 minutes he was up to 14th overall, but thanks to an ill-timed caution period, had to do it all over again. He was able to turn a solid car over to me and then it was time to make my way up to the front.
I was close, but my teammates in the No. 06 car were ahead of me. And after awhile, it was one-two – me in the No. 05 and Tom Kimber-Smith in the No. 06. It’s always tough to really race your teammate hard. Unless you’re careful, you can take both cars out and I’m pretty sure the guys wouldn’t appreciate that.
Tom is very skillful behind the wheel and it’s no surprise he’s won Le Mans three times. I was able to get by him at Lime Rock and it was pretty clear he wasn’t going to let that happen again. I didn’t want to push the issue.
In the end it was another CORE autosport one-two finish. Of course I wanted to be the “one” in that equation, as we were at Lime Rock, but it was a solid effort. Again, to start at the back of the pack but in the end be in contention to win shows just how strong the team is – from the pit work to the strategy, it all worked out.
As always, I loved driving at Road America. This was my first ALMS race there and it was very interesting to play the traffic game – it was very easy to get caught up in the Carousel or the Kink behind a GT car and really lose a lot of time, but when you got it right and the others didn’t, it got you a fair amount of time. It was quite a test of patience and I learned a lot.
And I was able to have a new experience on the track at Road America – on a bicycle at the Tour de Road America charity ride. My wife Melissa joined me, as did Jon and his girlfriend Sherri. We were all amazed at the amount of people that participated in the event.
Their enthusiasm was amazing and certainly helped us get around the track, which was needed. I can’t believe the hills that place has! It’s totally different when you have more than 400 horsepower propelling you around – but with my two legs, it was a real challenge! So much fun and we’ll definitely be signing up for next year.
So now we’re off to Baltimore, a two-hour street course sprint right in the Inner Harbor area. I’ve had no experience at that course but I’ve heard about the changes for this year which seem to be moving in a great direction with more passing opportunities.
Street racing is a very different animal than what we just did at Road America. There’s really no opportunity to correct mistakes made because there is no runoff – just walls. So the car has to be set up to be fast and solid as always, but also forgiving so you can catch it if something goes wrong.
At Long Beach we had weather issues that prevented us from practicing, and I hope that at Baltimore it’ll be clear to get some good feedback to the team for the race Saturday.
And if you were wondering, yes, there is a 2012 ALMS PC driver championship up for grabs. Right now Alex Popow is leading the standings, but I wouldn’t quite count Jon and I out. We’ve got a lot of fight left in us and there’s no doubt you’ll see a good street brawl in Baltimore!
~Colin
The youngest-ever race winner in GRAND-AM history, Colin Braun returns to his sports car roots for 2012, competing in the American Le Mans Series with defending class champions, CORE autosport. The 23-year-old star, who spent the last few years in the NASCAR Nationwide and Camping World Truck Series, co-drives the No. 05 Oreca FLM09 with team owner Jon Bennett as they pursue the LMPC championship.
For more information, visit: www.colinbraun.com. You can also follow Colin on Twitter @ColinBraun
To win it after seven races out of the ten 2012 ALMS races this year is a real testament to how good this team is. I’m glad that my efforts helped the team get that title.
I’d like to say that I knew this weekend that we were going to win, but I had no idea where we were in the championship and that the team clinched it, until I was driving down pit road after the race and saw the guys in their championship hats and with posters. Even then I was wondering what was going on – I knew that it was a one-two finish (we’ll get to that in a minute) – but it was only when I got out of the car when I was told what was going on.
Let’s just say I was a bit preoccupied with what happened at Road America.
To start off, we had a strong No. 05 Composite Resources ORECA FLM09 in practice. Everything looked dialed in and we were setting some pretty fast laps. But then we threw a belt in the last practice, which caused us to miss qualifying.
So my co-driver Jon had to start in the back of the pack. Not behind the PC car field, where we were ranked seventh, but behind all the GT and GTC cars. In 33rd. Considering that traffic is always an issue with five classes of cars on the track at the same time, and we were behind two of the slower classes, it was going to be not just a question of skill, but survival.
Jon did it though. In less than 20 minutes he was up to 14th overall, but thanks to an ill-timed caution period, had to do it all over again. He was able to turn a solid car over to me and then it was time to make my way up to the front.
I was close, but my teammates in the No. 06 car were ahead of me. And after awhile, it was one-two – me in the No. 05 and Tom Kimber-Smith in the No. 06. It’s always tough to really race your teammate hard. Unless you’re careful, you can take both cars out and I’m pretty sure the guys wouldn’t appreciate that.
Tom is very skillful behind the wheel and it’s no surprise he’s won Le Mans three times. I was able to get by him at Lime Rock and it was pretty clear he wasn’t going to let that happen again. I didn’t want to push the issue.
In the end it was another CORE autosport one-two finish. Of course I wanted to be the “one” in that equation, as we were at Lime Rock, but it was a solid effort. Again, to start at the back of the pack but in the end be in contention to win shows just how strong the team is – from the pit work to the strategy, it all worked out.
As always, I loved driving at Road America. This was my first ALMS race there and it was very interesting to play the traffic game – it was very easy to get caught up in the Carousel or the Kink behind a GT car and really lose a lot of time, but when you got it right and the others didn’t, it got you a fair amount of time. It was quite a test of patience and I learned a lot.
And I was able to have a new experience on the track at Road America – on a bicycle at the Tour de Road America charity ride. My wife Melissa joined me, as did Jon and his girlfriend Sherri. We were all amazed at the amount of people that participated in the event.
Their enthusiasm was amazing and certainly helped us get around the track, which was needed. I can’t believe the hills that place has! It’s totally different when you have more than 400 horsepower propelling you around – but with my two legs, it was a real challenge! So much fun and we’ll definitely be signing up for next year.
So now we’re off to Baltimore, a two-hour street course sprint right in the Inner Harbor area. I’ve had no experience at that course but I’ve heard about the changes for this year which seem to be moving in a great direction with more passing opportunities.
Street racing is a very different animal than what we just did at Road America. There’s really no opportunity to correct mistakes made because there is no runoff – just walls. So the car has to be set up to be fast and solid as always, but also forgiving so you can catch it if something goes wrong.
At Long Beach we had weather issues that prevented us from practicing, and I hope that at Baltimore it’ll be clear to get some good feedback to the team for the race Saturday.
And if you were wondering, yes, there is a 2012 ALMS PC driver championship up for grabs. Right now Alex Popow is leading the standings, but I wouldn’t quite count Jon and I out. We’ve got a lot of fight left in us and there’s no doubt you’ll see a good street brawl in Baltimore!
~Colin
The youngest-ever race winner in GRAND-AM history, Colin Braun returns to his sports car roots for 2012, competing in the American Le Mans Series with defending class champions, CORE autosport. The 23-year-old star, who spent the last few years in the NASCAR Nationwide and Camping World Truck Series, co-drives the No. 05 Oreca FLM09 with team owner Jon Bennett as they pursue the LMPC championship.
For more information, visit: www.colinbraun.com. You can also follow Colin on Twitter @ColinBraun
Monterey
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