Q and A with Colin Braun – Mexico City polesitter

Colin Braun

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IN, CARL EDWARDS SAID YOU WERE THE MAN TO BEAT TOMORROW AND HAD GREAT THINGS TO SAY ABOUT YOUR COACHING OF HIM. TELL US ABOUT THAT AND YOUR RUN TODAY. “First off, I really don’t think I’ve helped Carl too much. We went and tested at VIR about a month ago. Carl helped me out quite a bit, both Carl and Boris Said were there and those guys taught me a lot about road course racing and really helped get me up to speed in these cars. I know, obviously, a little bit about road course racing, but certainly not like those guys do in these stock cars. They helped me out quite a bit and really taught me a lot. I’m really thankful for those guys to help me out. Them helping me has started to dry-out a bit when we’re faster than them. Those guys are great guys and I’ve learned a lot from them. I don’t really think I’ve taught Carl anything, so if he wants to say that, that’s fine. I’m not going to complain. Our run today was really good. The whole 3M Ford Fusion team did a great job. My crew chief Eddie Pardue worked on our car pretty hard last night and made a few little adjustments to it and obviously was a little bit faster today. We ended up being second quickest overall [yesterday] and it was great to end up on the pole here. Those guys worked their butts off and I’m really proud of that whole team. We had a good test at VIR and we ran through a whole bunch of changes, got here yesterday and ran through a whole other bunch of changes. They’ve been working really hard and they definitely deserve to be on the pole here for how hard and for how much work those guys had put in. I’m just proud to be up here with the Ford Fusion car – it’s awesome."

CARL TOLD THE MEDIA THE STORY OF VIR AND HOW YOU WERE A SECOND FASTER THAN HIM. THEN BORIS MENTIONED YOU WERE THE BEST HE’S EVER SEEN. HOW DO YOU RESPOND TO THAT? “I’m sure I’ll be getting an invoice in the mail from Boris and Carl, here pretty soon to say those good things about me. Hopefully, I can afford it. I don’t know how much the pole pays, but hopefully, it’s enough to cover that. Those guys, they just helped me out a lot. I don’t really know what to respond to that. It’s obviously really nice that those guys say about me and I really appreciate that, but I’m just trying to sit here and learn as much as I can from those guys and just soak it all in. Those guys have done this for so long and have so much experience that I know I have a lot to learn, obviously, this being my first year in stock car racing. If Carl thinks I can help him out here on the road course, then I can go and pick his brain on the oval stuff, that’s going to be a great deal for me."

WHAT IS IT THAT YOU CAN TAKE FROM YOUR ROLEX SPORTS CAR RACING EXPERIENCE AND PLUG INTO THIS, IF ANY? “That race was obviously a really fun race. I qualified on the pole for that as well and led my whole stint, basically. I think a little bit just about how this race track changes during the day and what kind of car we’re going to have to have going into the race for tomorrow. We have time to make a few final adjustments on it before the race starts. I guess you have to be real smart about what the race track is going to do. I know Scott Pruett is obviously racing in that race this year. He’ll know a little bit better about what it’s going to do. I think a little bit of that and just a little bit the way these races tend to go here, where people can pass and where people get held up in traffic and things like that, I think, are going to come into play a little bit. Racing against guys like Carl and Boris who have done this same race here for the last three or four years. It’s going to be hard to make up that, but certainly it’s going to be better than never being here before."

IF THERE WERE ANY DOUBTS THAT YOU COULD BE GOOD IN A STOCK CAR IN A ROAD RACE, THEY’VE ALL BEEN LIFTED. WOULD YOU BE MORE INTERESTED NOW TO RACE IN SONOMA OR THE GLEN IN THE CUP CAR, IF THE CALL WERE TO BE MADE? “If the opportunity presented itself, I’d love to go do that. I’m a race car driver. I love driving race cars. It’s something I really enjoy and if I can do it every single weekend of my life, I’d be doing it. If I could do it every day, I’d be doing it. The more racing, the more driving I can do, the better. We’ll see what happens. Nothing has ever been brought up about that. I’m just focused on driving my No. 6 Con-way Freight Ford F-150 truck in the Craftsman Truck Series and we’re trying to as good of a job there as we can and win as many races as we can, and gain as much experience as we can. I’m just focused 100 percent on that. Then going to Nashville a couple of weeks ago in the Nationwide car and coming here this weekend in the Nationwide car, those have been my big focuses and whatever else happens, happens."

DID YOU EXPECT TO BE ON THE POLE? “Coming into this race, I thought just because how good the car is that the people at Roush Fenway build, how much power we have from the Ford guy and the people at Roush Yates, I thought there was definitely the possibility that we could have the pole here. It just depended on how close our set-up was when we got down here and how well I could drive it. Again, it goes to the hard work those guys have done. We started out here yesterday and we were a little bit off. We weren’t where we needed to be and it’s great to have a good crew chief like Eddie Pardue who has a bunch of notes stored up. We can run through the notes and look back through the changes that we made before and put those on the car. Obviously, it worked out pretty well for us today."