Former NASCAR star and now IMSA Sports Car Series driver Colin Braun briefly returned to the Stock Car world a few weeks ago at the Daytona Road Course event, competing in the ARCA Menards Series competition.
Braun helped GMS Racing driver Sam Mayer bring home the No. 21 Chevy to a third-place finish that night. The Texas native received the opportunity to split the driving duties with Mayer (something that normally doesn’t happen in ARCA/NASCAR), as the Wisconsin had a hairline fracture on his right wrist following a TransAm accident at Road America, the week prior.
The Daytona Road Course race was the first time in nine years that Braun has competed in the NASCAR/ARCA world. However, after his third-place run, he was satisfied with the outing and is open to doing more starts in the future, should the opportunity arise.
“For me, I really enjoyed myself,” Bruan said about the ARCA experience. “It was really a last minute deal (to drive). Sam Mayer unfortunately, had an incident at Road America the weekend before. Going to a road course with a lot of shifting, they (GMS) were worried about Mayer not being able to successfully finish that race.”
“So they called me up and I took the opportunity. They wanted to me jump in at the first yellow. Well, unfortunately or fortunately, there was no yellows through the first few laps, and I had to wait until the halfway break to jump in the car. That was the challenge for me, as the race was sort of a mixed conditions race and jumping in there, and sort of having to figure it halfway through the race, of what the racetrack was going to be like. I really enjoyed my experience though. Got those guys (GMS) a good finish and kept them strong in the points.”
“As far as doing more (races), I would love to do more of that racing. I enjoyed it back years ago when I did it, and jumping back in that ARCA car got me excited about Stock Car racing in general. It’s just the timing has to be right and everything else has to be right. However, I would definitely be interested.”
Braun currently competes in the LMP2 class driving in the No. 18 Era Motorsports entry and won the 2020 24 Hours of Daytona event back in January. In addition, Braun is mostly known for competing in the Truck and Xfinity Series from 2007-2011. He only has one victory to his name in the NASCAR world, which came in the 2009 Michigan Truck Series race.
